Health

19 Volunteers Sharing an iPhone Are Trying to Support Incarcerated People Through COVID-19

https://talkpoverty.org/2020/08/13/oregon-covid-19-prisoner-hotline?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker

Celeste Hamilton Dennis

TalkPoverty.org

13 August 2020

Text / 800-1500 Words

Portland-based Beyond These Walls, which connects LGBTQ people in Oregon and Washington who are incarcerated to the outside world, created a crisis phone line to provide emotional support during COVID-19, and to serve a watchdog function to hold prisons and jails accountable for their virus-containment practices. Trained volunteers have fielded 369 calls so far, more than a quarter of which concern fears that reporting virus symptoms could land people in solitary confinement. Beyond and its coalition partners can provide safety by letting jailers know their practices are being monitored.

Childcare centers see low COVID-19 transmission

http://nmindepth.com/2020/08/12/childcare-centers-see-low-covid-19-transmission?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker

Shaun Griswold

New Mexico In Depth

12 August 2020

Text / 800-1500 Words

Although the pandemic has brought on its own unique challenges, childcare centers in New Mexico have successfully developed safe and effective techniques to keep children and workers safe. At the UNM Chidren's campus, staff limits children to small groups, so if anyone tests positive, the risk of transmission is reduced. Some other centers have also implemented multiple levels of screening upon arrival before a child is allowed to join their group and have incorporated masks into playtime. “Masks are not a political issue for 3 and 4-year-olds. Nor are they a threat to their freedom or anything else.”

‘It's your baby, and it's, like, wow': 3-D images from ultrasounds allow blind parents to feel their infant's face

http://www.washingtonpost.com/health/its-your-baby-and-its-like-wow-3-d-images-from-ultrasounds-allow-blind-parents-to-feel-their-infants-face/2020/08/07/05241892-a4d7-11ea-8681-7d471bf20207_story.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker

Debra Bruno

The Washington Post

9 August 2020

Text / 800-1500 Words

3D ultrasound print outs help doctors perform non-invasive surgery in utero and provide blind parents with images during pregnancy. Doctors at Johns Hopkins hospital first used 3D models to improve surgery for spina bifida in utero. By placing one inside a soccer ball doctors can practice ahead of time for a less invasive procedure. A sonographer at the hospital expanded the approach to create 3D ultrasound models for patients who are blind. Some caution that ultrasounds are just diagnostic tools, but providing a picture of their ultrasound to someone who cannot see it in the traditional sense is powerful.

Scotland's 'Navigators' Transform Lives in the Emergency Room

https://reasonstobecheerful.world/scotland-violence-prevention-navigators-emergency-room?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker

Alasdair Lane

Reasons to be Cheerful

7 August 2020

Text / 800-1500 Words

In Scotland, the Navigators program performs violence interruption work in seven hospitals, at the bedside of victims of violence, with counseling and connections to social services to nudge people into safer lifestyles. Because Navigators act independently of the police and other authority figures, and because their service follows clients into the community, they are able to win the cooperation of 65-90% of those they approach. A survey of 100 clients showed 23% fewer emergency room visits in the year after cooperating with the program. Navigators started after violence in Scotland raged in 2005.

Searching with the Mothers of Mexico's Disappeared

https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/searching-with-the-mothers-of-mexicos-disappeared?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker

Ana Karina Zatarain

The New Yorker

5 August 2020

Text / Over 3000 Words

Las Rastreadoras de El Fuerte is a group of about 200 members, mostly mothers whose children are among the more than 73,000 people who have disappeared and presumably were murdered in Mexico's long drug war. Las Rastreadoras search the countryside for the unmarked graves of the missing, hoping to find their own children, often finding others'. In six years, they have found 198 bodies, 120 of whom were identified. What began spontaneously as one woman's search, then a group effort, has become a way to heal from the pain of what a psychologist calls "ambiguous loss" as well as an act of political activism.

Locals, who know Sunnydale's housing projects well, flattened a COVID-19 outbreak

https://missionlocal.org/2020/08/locals-who-know-sunnydales-housing-projects-well-flattened-a-covid-19-outbreak?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker

Lydia Chavez

Mission Local

5 August 2020

Text / 800-1500 Words

Community leaders in Sunnydale, CA contained a coronavirus scare through swift responses, appeals to the community, contact tracing and establishing neighborhood test sites. An emphasis on public education in the neighborhood was also essential to the efforts. The hyperlocal response, which was unique to the community and catered to its needs, was lauded by health workers.