Solving problems by addressing the underlying factors. By digging deep and attacking the root causes of a problem, changemakers are able to treat the disease rather than just the symptoms. These solutions offer help to those in need, employ a comprehensive approach to problem-solving, and address the determinants that keep individuals and communities from succeeding.
Treating underlying conditions, specifically those that are structural and systemic that cause social problems. These issues arise as a consequence from the way a society is organized. For example, a solution that addresses patriarchy or a lack of jobs in a poor neighborhood.
Help rather than punishmentThinking of behaviors such as addiction as diseases that require treatment.
Using a comprehensive approachProviding people with services that address multiple challenges at once.
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https://www.inquirer.com/news/power-corps-mural-arts-guild-philadelphia-youth-gun-violence-20201202.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Samantha Melamed
The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia Media Network)
2 December 2020
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PowerCorpsPHL and Mural Arts' Guild have notched impressive results in job placements of young people with criminal records. The programs' employment training, paid apprenticeships, and art therapy classes have all been disrupted by 2020's pandemic, social unrest, and street violence. Private grants have largely made up for budget cuts from the city of Philadelphia. But the lack of face to face training and counseling has been disruptive. Both programs and their trainees are persevering despite longer odds, with workarounds that keep the programs afloat in difficult times.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/bs-md-ci-cr-baltimore-police-focused-deterrence-20201201-mwsnkm25bndiddsiemx7grpx5m-story.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Tim Prudente
The Baltimore Sun
1 December 2020
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In the 1990s and again in 2014, when Baltimore used a strategy called focused deterrence to reduce street violence, it showed initial promise but then failed. Those failures can be tied to how the program was managed, and to changes in leadership, not to the approach itself. The strategy offers help to people at risk of shooting others or being shot, but threatens them with prosecution if they reject the help and commit violence. The revived Group Violence Reduction Strategy has worked well in many cities, including New Orleans, where Baltimore's current police chief came from.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/seattle-public-utilities-waste-pumping-program-has-cut-sewage-spills-from-homeless-peoples-rvs-in-half?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Scott Greenstone
The Seattle Times
28 November 2020
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To help those experiencing homelessness, Seattle Public Utilities workers travel around the city knocking on RV doors and asking occupants if they need their sewage tank pumped. Some RVs are broken down and occupants can’t get to a public dump site to dispose of their waste, so wastewater spills have increased over the years. However, since the pilot program was introduced in 2020, the spills from RVs have been cut in half.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/11/26/india-women-farming-millet?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Anne Pinto-Rodrigues
Yes! Magazine
26 November 2020
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In the face of climate change, the nonprofit SABALA is working with nearly 2,000 women farmers in India to participate in millet farming, which can also strengthen community food security and empower women. Using traditional farming techniques, farmers can cultivate 15 to 20 of the climate-resistant crops on a 1-acre plot. Due to the success with millet farming, nearly 300 of the women came together to start a cooperative to process surplus millets and sell the grain to the local community.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/its-been-life-altering-for-everyone-kindering-bridges-the-virtual-gap-to-help-kids-with-special-needs?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Sandi Doughton
The Seattle Times
26 November 2020
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When the coronavirus pandemic caused businesses and organizations to stop in-person offerings, a non-profit in Washington that specializes in services for children with special needs quickly shifted operations to an online format. Although this new online business model isn't financially feasible in the longterm, it has helped bridge the gap in care for many families and "the data so far suggest that most children are doing just as well as with in-person services."
https://theintercept.com/2020/11/26/mental-illness-prison-jail-police?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Jordan Smith
The Intercept
26 November 2020
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Crisis-intervention and de-escalation trainings for police were meant to reform the criminal justice system's handling of people suffering from mental illness. But a lack of rigorous standards in the training and use of these approaches means that they routinely fail as a means of diverting people from arrest and incarceration toward treatment. That failure, combined with a lack of adequate mental-health-care resources, maintains jails' and prisons' role as the nation's de facto mental health care hospitals, even though they lack the will and the means to help people heal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2020/11/24/native-americans-climate-change-swinomish?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Jim Morrison
Jovelle Tamayo
The Washington Post
24 November 2020
Multi-Media / 1500-3000 Words
The Swinomish tribe in Washington state is combining traditional knowledge and science to combat the effects of climate change and improve the health of its land, water, and people. In recent years, their salmon harvest has diminished due to warming waters, but they’ve instituted salmon recovery efforts by restoring tidelands and channels and planting trees along stream beds to cool the waters. Their focus on ecosystem and community health could be a model for other Indigenous tribes looking to create their own climate plans.
https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/this-app-pays-young-people-without-housing-to-build-life-skills?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Emily Nonko
Next City
24 November 2020
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Youth experiencing unstable housing in New Haven, Connecticut can build life skills in exchange for gift cards through an app built by a nonprofit. DreamKit incentivizes positive change for disadvantaged young people who have competing priorities. The nonprofit is building a pipeline which will allow them to gauge which skills employers are looking for, provide those skills through the app, and then present a list of trained youth to employers.
https://www.indystar.com/story/news/local/marion-county/2020/11/24/indianapolis-has-poured-millions-into-grant-funding-to-combat-crime-but-homicides-have-increased/5973196002?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Amelia Pak-Harvey
IndyStar (The Indianapolis Star)
24 November 2020
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By one measure, a record number of homicides in 2020, Indianapolis' decision to pump $13 million into two crime-prevention grant programs looks like a failure. But program advocates and researchers say that may not be the most accurate measure. Data show that multiple community-based projects are steering young people away from crime and toward jobs. It's difficult to untangle crime's multiple causes and the effects these programs have had over the past six years, and whether homicides would have been even worse but for the efforts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/23/health/artificial-intelligence-veterans-suicide.html?utm_source=Solutions+Story+Tracker
Benedict Carey
The New York Times
23 November 2020
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Veterans Affairs' Reach Vet program uses an algorithm weighing 61 factors to flag veterans deemed at highest risk of suicide. While its results have not been shown to affect the suicide rate, it has more than doubled high-risk veterans' uses of V.A. services and been associated with a lower overall mortality rate. Built on an analysis of thousands of previous suicides in the V.A.'s system, Reach Vet assesses scores of facts from medical records, including some that are not obvious to humans trying to spot problems. Doctors then intervene and ensure the veteran has a suicide safety plan in place.
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