Youth Today
Opinion
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2.9KTime to Take Close Look at Family First Act
To read the rhetoric coming from the foster care-industrial complex lately, you’d think that the private child welfare agencies that need a...
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1.1KCelebrating Professional After-school Workforce
A national survey of National AfterSchool Association members shows the after-school workforce has higher levels of education, more longevity in the field...
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1.4KWho Will I Be As an Adult?
In all those years I was bounced around, I didn’t know where I belonged or what would happen when I aged out...
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1.5KEarn to Learn: A Teen’s Job Is to Do Well in School
Young people commit — in writing — to a grade they will earn for each class. The better they perform, the higher...
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1.2KKeep Alcohol in Focus to Reduce Youth Substance Use
April is Alcohol Awareness Month. Addressing misperceptions is important, because otherwise we run the risk of further perpetuating beliefs among young people...
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1.5KWhat Do We Owe Each Other?
A teenage girl on the road to high school graduation struggles to stay connected to her birth parents while coping with their...
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The Impact of Food Insecurity on Child Well-Being
The implications of food insecurity on child development and school performance are striking. Innovative efforts like backpack programs, in collaboration with large-scale...
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I Choose Foster Care
I have been in foster care before, but this is the first time I chose to be. Before, I was ashamed to...
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1.3KLearning What Family Is at Age 16
It’s no Disney show, but after more than 16 placements, Selena reflects on how stability and safety in a foster home help...
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1.6KCommunity United: Breaking the Cycle of Violence and Poverty
With open communication and a consistent, unified goal, we need to tell the streets that have victimized so many innocent kids and...
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13.4KThe Importance of Youth Leaders in Substance Abuse Prevention
For many young people today, the word prevention is complicated. Some might think that prevention doesn’t affect them, and some might not...
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3.7K
The Jig Is Up, Child Savers: Molly McGrath Tierney Is on to You
Molly McGrath Tierney is not some bomb-throwing outsider who wouldn’t say terrible things about the child welfare system if she understood what...
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2.0KWe Need to Talk with Youth About Substance Use and SBIRT Is the Way to Do It
We know that almost everyone who struggles with addiction began using substances before the age of 18. So, we need to talk...
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2.4KAnxiety, Substance Abuse and the Cycle of Diminishing Returns
One of the main reasons I ended up addicted to drugs and alcohol was anxiety. Now make no mistake, I suffer from...
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2.3KReframing the Opioid Epidemic: Lawmakers Must Put Children First
Opioid use in the U.S. is a crisis. For 30 percent of kids removed from their parents’ care, substance use in the...
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1.6KFoster Caretaker Must Be Ready to Be Thoroughly Supportive of LGBT Youth
For many youth, foster care can be a safe place for care and support when the biological family does not provide appropriate...
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3.1KAddiction Doesn’t Discriminate, So Why Should We?
As prescription pain medication abuse grows in prevalence among youth, we can expect the rates of accidental overdose deaths among 12- to...
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10.8KFoster Parents Should Grieve When a Child Leaves Their Family
The comment made to me the most by those who are not foster parents is: “I could not do what you do....
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1.1KYouth Workers Need to Be Advocates for Greater Intervention
For too long, adult intervention has been society’s knee-jerk reaction instead of youth intervention. It is a failed approach, and a fundamental...
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1.1KAddressing the Gun Violence Epidemic: America Has the Will, Philanthropy Can Help Show the Way
From outbreaks of polio to the embrace of automobile seatbelts, the United States has a long record of rising to the challenge...
