A casual observer watching the preschool-aged children bounce around the outdoor playground at the Children’s Institute wouldn’t immediately notice anything amiss. Except that these kids wouldn’t be here had something not already gone very wrong in their young lives.
While Americans tend to think of sex trafficking as a problem that happens overseas, the United States is a major sex trafficking hub for obvious reasons—it's a rich country. An estimated 100,000 children in the U.S. are forced into the sex trade every year.
The Denver Post's Jennifer Brown knew there were compelling stories to be told behind Colorado's soaring numbers of homeless children. But finding and following the right families would take her on a six-month journey deep into two families' difficult daily lives.
For many contemporary Native American communities, accessing healthy food in any form is a challenge. While the federal government offers some assistance, it's often not enough. For my fellowship project, I'll investigate what resources tribes are using – or not – to address food insecurity.
In Arkansas, judges make frequent use of their authority to lock up children known as "status offenders," despite the fact that they haven't broken any laws. Few people outside the juvenile justice system know how easy it is for a child to end up behind bars. Even fewer see the long-lasting impact.
How can we keep abuse and neglect from occurring in succeeding generations? Florida judge Cindy Lederman offers a vision of juvenile court as a crucial opportunity to turn around the lives of both parents and young children, before it's too late.
While the media focuses on the negotiations surrounding Greece's deepening debt crisis, another angle of the story has received less attention: A country on the financial brink is on the verge of a health crisis, too, with medicine shortages a real possibility.
The U.S. has a much higher rate of child maltreatment deaths than other rich countries, and studies are beginning to show that early child abuse can spark changes that are linked to later-in-life health issues. But how do you get poor, stressed parents to be kinder and more engaged?
Last year, more than 50,000 unaccompanied minors from Central America crossed the Mexico-U.S. border looking for their parents or better opportunities. But the journey north can entail serious trauma and suffering. What are the long-term mental health issues such children face?
Fresno County continues to be plagued with high teen pregnancy rates and even higher STD rates in some cases among the worst in the state. With that in mind local health leaders are urging one Valley school district to bring back sex education to the classrooms.
