California Law to Close Group Homes Stresses Importance of Family for Every Foster Kid

Katrina Alston wasn’t trained as a therapist, social worker or anything of that nature when she worked at a Pasadena, California, group home for emotionally troubled teenage girls in the Los Angeles County foster care system. She simply went through a weeklong training process and two weeks of job shadowing.

Traumatized, Locked Up, LA Girls Starting to Get More Help

Moriah Barrett, then 14, woke up to burns on her body one night along with physical evidence that she had been raped. She had been invited to a party the night before by someone she considered a friend.

Why Are LA’s Foster Kids More Likely to Be Charged With Crimes?

Social workers “look at the delinquency system as having the power to control these [foster] kids. And the control is they get locked up. They think of that as a traditional method of disciplining the kids.”

JJIE Los Angeles Bureau

Biggest Obstacles To HIV Treatment Aren’t Medical, Doctor Says

“About 50 percent of the patients we get are Latino males,” said Belzer. “Then another 35 to 40 percent are African-American [males]. In Los Angeles, they combine to make about 20 or 25 percent of the total population, so the disparity is very clear.”