Youth Service America and the Sodexo Foundation

$500 Grants for Youth-Led Hunger Initiatives

By |

Youth Service America (YSA) and the Sodexo Foundation are awarding 25 Sodexo Youth Grants, totaling $500 each, in an effort to support youth-led service projects in conjunction with National Hunger & Homeless Awareness Week (Nov. 13-20, 2011). Applicants must be between the ages of 5 and 25 to qualify and the project idea must take place, at least in part, during National Hunger & Homeless Awareness Week. More than 17 million kids in the United States are at risk of hunger, according to the YSA, including the one in four children that rely on free or reduced-price school meal programs.
Videos from past grant recipients are available on the YSA website. If considering the grant a good place to start may be the eligibility quiz.

As Hurricane Irene Hits the East Coast, Parents Get Kids Through the Storms

By |

This weekend many east coast families are canceling or changing their final summer travel plans and figuring out how to explain the violent winds and rains of hurricanes to their young children. Hurricane Irene is something many kids have not yet experienced. The destructive, monster of a storm is raking the Eastern Seaboard . Some kids remain oblivious to the storm, while others are obsessively watching weather updates or are intrigued by the science behind it. Once the wind and water damage hit, many kids may experience serious anxiety, possibly amplified by the overwhelming media coverage on TV and on the Internet.

In Philadelphia, Summer Might be Over but not the Curfew

By |

As the Labor Day weekend approaches, officials in Philadelphia have decide to extend a curfew on young people they say has been effective in extinguishing flash mobs. The summertime curfew has been in effect the last few weeks, since a group of teens attacked several people in the city’s downtown. A spokesman for Mayor Michael Nutter told the Philadelphia Inquirer the curfew is working and would be extended until the start of the regular school year on Sept. 6. After that, students will find themselves subject to the city’s school-year ordinance that makes kids aged 13-17 subject to a 10:30 weekday, and a midnight weekend, curfew.

Social Networking Teens More Likely to Drink or Use Drugs, Study Finds

By |

Teens who spend time on social networking sites such as Facebook are more likely to smoke, drink alcohol or use drugs, says a new survey by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA). The report says:
Compared to teens who do not spend time on a social networking site in a typical day, teens who do are:

Five times likelier to have used tobacco (10 percent vs. 2 percent);
Three times likelier to have used alcohol (26 percent vs. 9 percent);
Twice as likely to have used marijuana (13 percent vs. 7 percent).

Disney, Take Beyond Scared Straight Aff the Air

By |

An Open Letter to

Robert A. Iger, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Walt Disney Company

Dear Mr. Iger:

I know Disney is a large company and you, like Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation, can’t oversee everything. So I want to let you know about one of your company’s investments -- Disney’s one-third equity stake in the A&E Television Networks. Since it is not fully under Disney’s control, maybe that’s why you haven’t been watching A&E’s "Beyond Scared Straight." Certainly if you had, you would have intervened and pulled it off the air, but alas last week marked the beginning of its second season.

Teens Facing Preventable Addiction Leading to Costly Health Problem for Nation

By |

Teen addiction is “the largest preventable and most costly public health problem in America today,” according to a recent report discussed by the the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Researchers at Columbia University National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse found that 75 percent of high school students nationwide have used addictive substances, such as cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine or prescription drugs. And these numbers don’t include incarcerated adolescents or those who have dropped out of school. Addiction is more likely for “the underdeveloped teen brain,” heightening the possibility of impaired judgment and bad decisions throughout life, the report says. It also says that teens who are exposed to parents' substance use disorders are more than three times as likely as other teens to have a substance use disorder themselves.

Beyond Scared Straight Producers Make Donation to Program Featured in Recent Episode

By |

Sheriff Chipp Bailey, of Mecklenburg County, N.C., has confirmed to JJIE his office received a $10,000 donation from the producers of “Beyond Scared Straight” following the appearance of the county’s “Reality Program” on the controversial A&E television show. Bailey said the money, provided by Arnold Shapiro Productions, would be used to offset the costs of the food and field trips that are part of the aftercare portion of the “Reality Program." It is unclear whether the producers have made similar payments to other programs filmed for “Beyond Scared Straight”. The “Reality Program” is designed, according to Bailey, to educate at-risk youth on the realities of prison life and help them avoid making decisions that would land them in jail. In the initial portion of the program, teens are brought to the county jail, and dressed in prison uniforms while deputies intimidate, yell at and berate them.

Beyond Scared Straight Program “Incoherent” According to Conflict Management Expert

By |

Set to air Thursday at 8 p.m., the premier episode of the new season of the controversial reality show, “Beyond Scared Straight,” adheres to the themes that made it A&E’s most watched show: A small group of at-risk youth spend the day in prison where they are yelled at, intimidated and humiliated by sheriff’s deputies and inmates alike. The screaming and threats of prison rape are followed by emotional conversations with the inmates as they describe to the teens where they went wrong and how the teens can avoid the same fate. The episode features Mecklenburg County, N.C.’s “Reality Program,” created by Sheriff Daniel “Chipp” Bailey. “Our Reality Program stresses education, not intimidation,” Bailey is quoted as saying on the program’s website. According to the website, the mission of the program is to “provide the community with a program which will help educate young people about the long-term effects of participating in criminal activity.”

After watching the show, non-violent communication and conflict management expert Dr. Heather Pincock was baffled.

Boston Teens Learn Modern Etiquette for Facebook Romance

By |

Boston teens got a lesson in the do’s and don’ts of Facebook romance late last month during a one-day conference on “healthy break-ups.” According to The New York Times Magazine, the seminar, sponsored by the Boston Public Health Commission, attempted to answer such pressing questions as: how fast is too fast to change your relationship status? And when is it OK to delete pictures of your ex? Behaviors were classified as “healthy” or “unhealthy.” During one session, a 17-year-old boy was told he should “take a technology timeout” the next time he felt the urge to rush home and change his relationship status after a break-up. Teens were encouraged not to initiate break-ups through text messages or on Facebook. In order to drive the point home, one adult facilitator wore a pin reading, “Face It, Don’t Facebook It.”

Conference organizer Nicole Daly told The Times magazine breakups are the part of relationships adults never discuss with teens.

Jennifer Bishop Jenkins On Punishment and Teen Killers

By |

"Some persons will shun crime even if we do nothing to deter them, while others will seek it out even if we do everything to reform them. Wicked people exist. Nothing avails except to set them apart from innocent people." -- James Q. Wilson, Harvard Professor and Crime Expert

My youngest sister was the joy of our close family. When a teenager murdered her and her husband in 1990 in suburban Chicago, she was pregnant with their first child.