Jackson Teens Need Mentors, Opportunity

Girls Court brings an all-hands-on-deck approach to the lives of vulnerable girls, linking them to social service agencies, providing informal Saturday sessions on everything from body image to legal jargon, and offering a team of adults in whom they can develop trust.

The foster care system is widely acknowledged to be 'broken', and to ignore those who age out of the system. A program in Memphis is improving the lives of at-risk youths by working to reunite them with their original families.

Palm Beach County, Florida has many of the same social problems that Philadelphia has, including “gangs, drugs, and poverty.” However, their school system has managed to keep students safe by employing “safe-school case managers” who build relationships with students, and they offer a youth court that is a system run by students who peer-review cases of unrest. The initiatives in this county has prevented school violence from happening without metal detectors and just two police officers.

It’s now common for youth to remain in foster care or residential treatment for years. For troubled or victimized children in need, assistance at home is often more effective than foster placement.

A novel way to help young men growing up in communities in which concentrated poverty, violence and unemployment are well-documented barriers to health and longevity: male youth of color are trained to be the emergency response team to help stabilize street victims before doctors or nurses begin procedures.

For young people, learning the social norms of the office is crucial for survival in the new economy. Year Up is an organization that is unusually successful at preparing young adults from disadvantaged backgrounds for jobs in big companies.

There are many other adults beyond teachers who regularly interact with children — and who are often overlooked as potential contributors to the educational mission. Hartsville, South Carolina, uses school bus drivers as a resource and extra set of eyes to observe how students are doing.

In Clayton County, Georgia, the Second Chance Court is using a different tactic to give offenders the opportunity to move forward. The program, started in 2010, allows selected teens to attend counseling and classes – often with their parents – centered around self improvement and appropriate behavior. Collaborating with a community organization, the Second Chance Court has been able to reduce recidivism in youth.

South Dakota’s “24/7 Sobriety” initiative breathalyzers tens of thousands of people every day in an effort to curb drunk driving. Rather than legislation that takes penalizes offenders by taking away their license, the state addresses the behavioral issue instead. In counties that use the “24/7 Sobriety,” they’ve seen a 12% decrease in repeat drunken-driving arrests.

Bangladesh has often struggled maintaining safety in the workplace. But a new effort ensures that Bangladeshi workers are trained about how to better follow security and safety restrictions to create a safer working environment.