The word of the week for Whitefoord students of the Intel Computer Club is "innovate."

The Whitefoord Approach to Community, Health and Education

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At a glance it can be hard to see the impact of the breadth of services offered by the Whitefoord Community Program (WCP) on the cluster of Atlanta neighborhoods they serve. The non-profit runs four health clinics in nearby schools, offers child development and pre-K services, after school programs, digital media training, summer reading and math workshops and even a Bike Rite health initiative.

In a time of tight city and state budget, more and more municipalities are looking for ways to deliver services to the communities that need them. In Atlanta, one such program, the WCP, has been in place for years and could prove to be a model for the nation. Through grants and other funding the project has proven sustainable. Through community involvement it has proven useful and effective.

Look a little closer at the project and you’ll see the evolution of a community support system that weaves together family, health and education. What stated with a one-square mile area and a single health clinic in Whitefoord Elementary School on the east side of Atlanta more than 15 years ago has evolved into a system that reaches into a number of communities in that area of the city.

All of these services work in tandem from just about the time the child leaves the womb until he or she graduates high school with one goal in mind: providing the children of this inner-city community with the tools they need to complete their education.

Clarence Jones, director of the WCP's Beyond School Hours program, has been with the organization since shortly after it's founding.
At nine weeks, infants can enroll, space provided, in the WCP’s Child Development program and start gearing up for their formal education. Unlike traditional daycare, this nationally accredited child development program employs HighScope Curriculum, a style of early childhood teaching and learning focused on active participation and educational development.

From One Inner-city Park, Voices of the Protest Movement

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The protests in Lower Manhattan have been going on for more than a month. Other protests have steadily built in recent weeks, with large numbers of people turning out in cities from Boston to Los Angeles. Though predominantly young, protesters include older and middle-aged people as well. Some have jobs, others are unemployed and they represent just about every race and ethnicity. The messages and wants of the protesters are just as varied.

Americans Believe in Treatment Over Incarceration for Youth, New Poll Finds

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A majority of Americans favor rehabilitation and treatment of youth over incarceration, new national poll found. The survey, commissioned by the Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ), also found most Americans, 76 percent, believe youth should not automatically be sent to adult court. The poll was given to 1,000 U.S. adults.

"This public opinion research demonstrates Americans’ strong support for rehabilitation and treatment for court-involved youth, over incarceration and automatic prosecution in adult criminal court," stated CFYJ’s President and CEO Liz Ryan in a press release. "In light of this research, it is urgent that state officials accelerate youth justice reforms to reduce the incarceration of youth and prosecution in adult criminal court, and that Congress and the Administration reject deep cuts to juvenile justice funding."

Other highlights from the poll include:

A large majority of the public, 89 percent, would prefer youth to receive treatment, counseling and education.
Family is an important component in the juvenile justice system. Eighty-six percent of Americans favor involving the youth’s family in treatment while ensuring youth remains connected to their families.
Sixty-nine percent of Americans believe children should not be placed in adult prisons and jails.
Many Americans, 71 percent, favor providing more funds to public defenders to represent youth in court.
Eighty-one percent of Americans trust judges over prosecutors when determining if a child should be tried as an adult.

GOCF Executive Director Katie Jo Ballard

Georgia’s Governor’s Office of Children and Families Gains Footing with New Executive Director

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Newly appointed executive director Katie Jo Ballard will be the first to tell you that the Georgia Office of Children and Families (GOCF) has a heck of a job. Since 2008 the organization has been charged with implementing “a spectrum of prevention, intervention, and treatment services for all children” in Georgia.

That means identifying effective programs and delivering funding across four areas of service: youth development, family violence, juvenile justice, and prevention programs.

“We’re looking for people that can provide 360 kinds of care for a family,” says Ballard. “Like really wrap themselves around a family and support them in every aspect.”

The GOCF doesn’t deliver any services directly. Rather, the organization distributes a combination of federal and state funds to community-based programs through a competitive grant process.

Since taking office in mid-August, Ballard has been trying to wrap her head around everything the organization does. The agency offers so many grants in so many areas, and some of those grantees offer sub-grants, she says, so there’s a lot to take in.

“I’m a very visual person, so I’m actually going out there and trying to visit sites so I can see what they do,” she says. “That’s what’s been the most rewarding to me, actually meeting a survivor of domestic violence, meeting a child that survived sexual exploitation, hearing those stories and how our programs have helped them… That’s the best part, but it’s also the hardest.”

Drugs Now Kill More People Than Car Crashes

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Every 14 minutes, someone dies from drugs, according to a recent examination of government data by the LA Times. What’s worse is that attempts by experts to reverse this trend don’t seem to be working. Drug deaths, fueled by prescription pain and anxiety drugs, now outnumber traffic fatalities in the United States,

This is the first time since the government started tracking drug-induced deaths in 1979 that drugs have killed more people than cars. Most cases of preventable death are declining. Drugs, however, are the exception. While teens and young people often abuse drugs, even, according to the mother one teen who died of an overdose, attending parties where pills are poured into a bowl and taken without knowledge of what they are taking, now people of all ages are suffering from drug-induced deaths. Drug fatalities more than doubled among teens and young adults between 2000 and 2008, yet the death toll is highest among people in their 40s, according to data from The Centers for Disease Control.

Richard Ross

Celebrating the Power of the Still: Juvenile-In-Justice Series Premieres on JJIE

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Richard Ross is a busy guy. Catch him, if you can, dashing to, through or from, an airport. He’s always on the go.

But then again, if you plan on visiting 300 youth detention facilities across the nation, taking photos of more than 1,000 young people and administrators, then you don’t really have time to stand around and chat, for long anyhow.

One’s photography does not appear in more publications than you can shake a Canon 5D at -- from Harpers to Architectural Digest -- by being lazy. You don’t sit on your butt on the way to having your photos shown at galleries from The Tate Modern in London, to the High Museum in Atlanta. You don’t loaf around and end up publishing books, such as the Architecture of Authority and Waiting for the End of the World and get them introduced by the likes of John MacArthur and Sarah Vowell, by slacking.

And in between, if you are Ross, well you don’t really have down time, because there’s that class you have to teach at U.C. Santa Barbara.

It’s a good thing he approaches his work with the energy of a teenager, but it’s a better thing that he does it with the practiced eye and maturity of his 64 years. With that combination, comes not only care for his art and what’s in it, but the subjects and subject beyond the images. See it across his body of work.

His latest, and the object of his profound care for the past five years, is a project he calls Juvenile-In-Justice. This is what has taken him to those many detention centers scattered across 30 states. After 40 years of working in photography, he’s turning his attention, and his lens, he says, to the juvenile justice system.

The point of this exercise? He does not even attempt to blur his motivation. It is, quite simply, to “instigate policy reform.”

With his stunning photos it is hard to see how he will fail:

Ross’ work begins appearing this week on this page as well as our new arts page, Bokeh. Twice a week, you’ll see new images of his work on the JJIE site, where a link will take you to a larger body of his work on the Bokeh site. The images, all of youth inside detention centers, will include cutlines telling you enough about the teen for you to get a feel of their, and Ross’, humanity.

general liquor in store 1 - JJIE.org stock photo, Clay Duda/JJIE Staff

New Social Media Guidelines for Alcohol Companies to Prevent Advertising to Kids

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Want to interact with your favorite alcohol companies on Facebook? Then you better be able to legally take a drink. Starting September 30, alcohol companies in the United States and Europe now have to consider a set of self-regulatory guidelines designed to prevent marketing their products to kids, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS) issued these rules for advertising and marketing on all branded digital marketing communications, including social networking sites, websites, blogs, mobile communications and other applications. Alcohol marketers already use age gates on their brand websites, requiring people to enter their birth date to prevent minors from accessing the sites.

New Juvenile Justice Database in Georgia Puts Pieces of Puzzle in One Place

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With the goal of presenting “the most current and accurate juvenile crime data available,” Georgia's Governor’s Office for Children and Families (GOCF) launched a new website this week. The Georgia Juvenile Justice Data Clearinghouse aggregates data from multiple partners such as the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice.

“It’s a way to synthesize the information so people can look at it and say, ‘OK, this is what we’ve got,'” said Joe Vignati, director of Justice Programs at GOCF.

“You’ve got pieces of the puzzle all over the place,” Vignati said. And not all counties are able to report their data yet. In fact, one county, Vignati said, is still using paper records.

Georgia's First Lady, Sandra Deal, was the inaugural visitor to the website a few days ago. After signing on, she said, “I am confident that this effort will go a long ways in helping improve outcomes for Georgia’s Youth, “said Mrs. Deal.

The site is broken into three main sections: Reports and Dashboards, Interactive Map and Pre-made Maps, each providing multiple ways of exploring the data from spreadsheets to pie charts.

Fractured Leg, Fractured Family: A Misdiagnosis Leads to Allegations of Child Abuse

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When Anthony Richards, Jr., was born on an early Sunday morning in June, the only complications involved his family getting the cameras in focus to capture his arrival into the world. He was a healthy baby and his parents, Queenyona Boyd and Anthony Richards, Sr., couldn’t have been happier. Yet, only four days later Anthony was put in foster care after doctors discovered an unexplained broken femur, his distraught parents the suspects of child abuse. A Protective Father's Discovery

After the hospital discharged Boyd and her baby boy, Richards took the two straight home later that Sunday. The following day, Boyd slipped out to pick up her prescriptions at a pharmacy only a short drive away.