mental health: Concerned people comforting each other at a therapy session

I’m an Activist and I Get Care for My Trauma. You Should Too

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Since I was released from prison, I’ve dedicated my life to equipping young leaders with training and tools to fight to end youth incarceration and close youth prisons. Because I’ve lived through it, I know that there is no better way to support my community than by helping end youth incarceration and helping convince our leaders to invest in young people’s futures instead of bars and cells. Many of my fellow leaders in this movement have similar lived experiences.

Mental health: Child in Prison. Concept sign for all forms of child abuse like physical punishment or mental cruelty

Only Some Correctional Staff Being Taught How to Handle Traumatized Inmates

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Steven Cave’s transformation happened in spite of a system that calls itself correctional but instead, he says, perpetuated his worst traumas, beliefs and behaviors. He entered that system in the state that has sentenced the most minors to life without parole, and where solitary confinement was a favorite method of punishment. In 2013, the Department of Justice found the state’s use of it in several facilities was unconstitutional.

scared girl of color

Black Girls Pay the Price When Police Enter Schools

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Sen. Marco Rubio sent a letter to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and Attorney General Jeff Sessions this week wrongly blaming the Parkland shooting on the Department of Education’s School Discipline Guidance package. This guidance, released in 2014, reminded schools of their responsibility to address racial discrimination in school discipline, which affects students in every state.

How to Teach the Most Challenging Youth to Problem Solve & Reduce Staff Injuries

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Restrictive therapeutic facilities — inpatient psychiatry units, residential facilities, group homes and juvenile detention facilities — serve the most challenging youth in society. Before admission, these children and adolescents have often been on the receiving end of countless detentions, suspensions, expulsions, restraints, seclusions and corporal punishment. Many have significant trauma histories.

Queer Youth Must Get Sexual Health Care While Incarcerated

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As “bathroom bills,” military transgender bans and elimination of protections for LGBTQ federal employees demonstrate, we are a long way from a society in which coming out is a realistic option for all. The truth of this likely hits youth the hardest, who still risk family rejection, bullying, even homelessness for coming out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer.