The firm has provided technical assistance and other support to school districts, other governmental agencies and non-profit organizations supporting at risk youth including ETA’s  Youth Offender Reentry and School District  (Gang Prevention and Intervention.) initiatives.  These programs align well with the firm’s coachWEST and other similar signature programs. See also WEST’s Beacon publication at www.mhwest.com/theBEACON funded through the ETA. Contact consulting@mhwest.com for more information or call 804.782.1938 or 888.937.8904.

Making Second Chances Work: A Conference for Grantees Committed to Successful Reentry gave attendees a chance to learn from many reentry experts including:

• United States Senator Brownback (KS)
• United States Representative Danny Davis (IL)
• United States Representative Bobby Scott (VA)
• Director of Bureau of Justice Assistance, United States Department of Justice - Jim Burch
• Member of Council of State Governments Justice Center Board of Directors – Pat Colloton
• Director of Council of State Governments Justice Center – Michael Thompson

Joe Armstrong remarked that the lunchtime presentation; a conversation between Andres Idarraga, who was previously incarcerated but has gone on to graduate from Yale Law School, and A. T. Wall, the Director of Rhode Island Department of Corrections, was an inspiring example of what is possible when the system and individuals work together towards reentry.

In 1963, Height was the only woman on the speaker’s platform when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech.

Harvard professor Charles Ogletree called Height “an absolute genius.”

“Everything that we do today is influenced by her sacrifices decades ago, her marches as a teenager against lynching, her buying a building right on Pennsylvania Avenue to in a sense to talk about the slave trade, and her commitment to open up doors for others is unparalleled,” Ogletree said.

Height continued to fight for equal justice up until the end of her life. In 2008, she told NPR — while wearing a feathered purple chapeau with a fetching bow — that there is unfinished business in civil rights.

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About 28 different languages are spoken in the halls of this school, where Black, White, Latino and Asian students from all walks of life mingle easily in the cafeteria. On warm days they gather on the front lawn or the concrete steps of the school’s stadium. The African-American students, who make up 54 percent of the student body, can claim as many advantages as any other group: Some are the children of cardiologists, college professors,lawyers and corporate executives. One might think that the national education gap between Black and White students does not apply in this largely middle-class setting. Not so,- says the school’s principal, Angela R. Davis, who is African-American.

Read Entire Article, courtesy of Essence Magazine. (PDF File)

For ideas on how you can get involved and take action to help create healthier communities, please see the suggestions below:

Spread the Word, Inspire Others
Check out the new video titled A Healthier America. Building on the success of last year’s Generation Public Health video, this year’s video shows how small changes can lead to major improvements in public health and create healthier communities nationwide. Find out more at www.generationpublichealth.org.

Become a Health Champion
Health Champions advocate, organize, encourage, and inspire health improvements and an overall healthy lifestyle for themselves, their family, their communities and sometimes the entire nation. Health Champions lead by example. If we all work together, we can create a ripple effect of communities that are championing healthy living. Post a personal “Health Champions” commitment to your Facebook page, your blog or Twitter account and answer the question: How will you make a difference in your neighborhood or community to move toward creating a healthier America?

Take Action
Tell the Senate to Support Food Safety Reform.  Every year, millions of Americans are sickened from consuming contaminated food, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized, and thousands die. Continued outbreaks of foodborne illness over the last several years have demonstrated that these outbreaks are due to widespread problems with our broken food safety system. Please send a letter  urging your Senators to support the FDA Food Modernization Act.

By promoting good health in our communities, we can create a ripple effect from coast to coast!

More than three dozen organizations – including several community colleges and youth-serving agencies – will split $150 million in “green jobs” grants released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The grants – dubbed Pathways out of Poverty grants and part of a larger, $500 million green jobs initiative under the Recovery Act – are meant to help disadvantaged communities “gain access to the good, safe and prosperous jobs of the 21st century green economy,” U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said in a statement announcing the grants.

The labor secretary said green jobs offer “tremendous opportunities” for those who are prepared to work them.

That’s where youth-serving agencies and organizations such as CNY Works Inc. – one of 38 organizations to be awarded the grants – come in.

CNY Works Inc. will partner with the State University of New York (SUNY) College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse to train approximately 750 individuals – roughly a quarter of them disadvantaged youths – for jobs in the emerging so-called “green economy.”

Michael Irwin, program manager at CNY Works Inc., said the jobs will be within construction, as electricians’ apprentices and the like, and involve taking a green approach to the work.

Even though it’s unclear just how vibrant the green economy will be and how many jobs it will produce, Irwin says the green jobs training provided under CNY’s $3.7 million grant will help make trainees more employable.

“You’ve got to look forward, not backward,” Irwin said. “Looking at these jobs, it makes sense to either go through the training and get a job right away, or, as the jobs evolve, you’re preparing for the future as well.”

Irwin said CNY Works Inc., which serves as the federally-funded one-stop location in Syracuse, N.Y., has talked with area employers with green jobs to ensure that work is lined up for some trainees when they finish the program. He says the program should be in operation by March.

Other youth-serving agencies to win Pathways out of Poverty grants include local and national organizations, such as Opportunities Industrialization Centers of America, Inc., which received  $4.9 million, to lesser-known Boley Centers, Inc. of St. Petersburg, Fla., which was awarded  $2.3 million to serve disadvantaged and unemployed youths; and PathStone Corp., of Rochester, NY,  which received $8 million to provide training in deconstruction, renewable energy and recycling to high school dropouts, among others.

To view a complete list of grant recipients and their project descriptions, go to http://www.doleta.gov/pdf/Pathways_Poverty_grants.pdf

The final portion of the $500 million in Recovery Act green jobs training money is scheduled to be released in the coming weeks, according to the labor department.

View original article here.

At 33, he was pressing the case of civil rights with President John Kennedy. At 34, he galvanized the nation with his “I Have a Dream” speech. At 35, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. At 39, he was assassinated, but he left a legacy of hope and inspiration that continues today.

This Web site, first created by The Seattle Times in 1996, contains the story of a remarkable man, images of a tumultuous time, and perspectives of politicians, academics, students and the many, ordinary citizens whose lives he touched. We invite you to explore it.

The conference brought together jurisdictions from around the country that are currently implementing the gang violence and/or the drug market strategy. The participating groups shared best practices and addressed common issues such as; providing a supportive community of practice for new jurisdictions and working to make these strategies standard practice across the United States.

Some of the best minds of the criminal justice system and youth welfare were at the conference. Innovative programs like David Kennedy’s Ceasefire, provided a sense of optimism to conference participants that crime reduction was possible when a solid plan is implemented.

Perhaps the only thing more challenging than the business environment this year was the criteria for making the list, which, with eight newcomers, was the most competitive yet.
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The study by the Pew Research Center, an independent research group, highlights a rapidly graying labor market due to longer life spans, an aging baby boomer population and a souring economy that has made it harder to retire.

Pew’s survey and analysis of government data, found the share of Americans ages 55 and older who have or were seeking a job rose to 40 percent this year, the highest level since 1961. In contrast, people 16 to 24 who were active in the labor market decreased to 57 percent, down from 66 percent in 2000.

Asked to identify why they’re working, 54 percent of older workers responded that it was mostly because they wanted to, citing a desire while they were still feeling healthy to be productive, interact with other people or to “give myself something to do.” A sizable number of them — nearly 4 in 10 — also acknowledged staying put at work partly because of the recession.

Among young people 16 to 24, nearly half the respondents said they weren’t working because they wanted to focus on school or job training, reflecting a growing view among Americans that a college education is needed to get ahead in life. About 4 in 10 said they looked for work but couldn’t find a job.

In all, the number of older workers is projected to increase by 11.9 million in the next few years. They will make up nearly 1 in 4 workers by 2016.

“When it comes to work, this recession is having a differential impact by age. It’s keeping older adults in the work force longer, and younger adults out of the work force longer,” said Paul Taylor, director of the Pew Social and Demographic Trends Project. “Both of these trends pre-dated the current downturn, both have been intensified by it, and both are poised to outlast it.”

Among other findings:

—The U.S. labor force is expected to increase by 12.8 million workers from 2006 to 2016, including the 11.9 million who will be ages 55 and older. Workers ages 25 to 54 will increase by 2.5 million, while those ages 16 to 24 will decrease by 1.5 million.

—After increasing for five decades, the share of women holding or seeking a job has flattened at 59 percent. That is about 13 percentage points below the rate of men in the labor market. Asked to identify their reasons for not working, women were nine times more likely than men to cite child care or other family responsibilities as a major factor.

—Older workers tend to be happier. About 54 percent of workers ages 65 and older said they were “completely satisfied” with their jobs, compared with 29 percent of workers ages 18 to 64. That reflected the fact that they were working primarily for more social reasons, rather than financial need.

—Most working mothers prefer a part-time job. Among those with a full-time job outside the home, 6 in 10 said they would like to have a job with fewer hours. By contrast, just 19 percent of fathers with a full-time job and a young child said they would prefer to work part-time.

“Public attitudes about women and work may have changed dramatically over the past generation, but mothers and fathers still experience the tug between work and family in very different ways,” Taylor said. “Mothers who have children at home and work full time would rather be working part time, or not at all. Fathers who have children at home are glad to have a full-time job.”

Pew based its findings on data from the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It also interviewed 1,815 people ages 16 and older by cell phone or landline from July 20 to Aug. 2 about their attitudes toward work. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.

View original article here.