Youth violence has declined sharply over two decades–more than 70 percent in New York State, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. Yet in some neighborhoods there are now increasing reports of gang activity and violence. Tensions and distrust remain high between law enforcement officials and community members – especially young people. Leaders [...]

Check out the video from our most recent Child Welfare Watch Community Forum, featuring ACS Commissioner Ronald Richter. The Bloomberg administration is seeking major changes in how the city works with teens in juvenile justice, child protection and foster care. The city would create a complete juvenile justice system in the five boroughs, no longer [...]

According to the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services, 70 percent of the 50,383 arrests for possession of marijuana in New York City in 2010 were of young people under 30, and 86 percent of those arrested were black and Latino. The debate on the classification of marijuana possession as a crime is heating [...]

Parent advocates are trained to support birth parents as they navigate the city’s complicated child welfare system. Research suggests they can help parents successfully move their child welfare cases forward. In June, 2009, the Parent Advocate Initiative (PAI) was created to promote the employment and support of Parent Advocates in foster care agencies. What lessons [...]

For years, rates of homelessness among the city’s former foster youth have remained stubbornly high. The city is connecting more teens to families, keeping more of them out of foster care in the first place, and developing new programs for pregnant and parenting foster teens. But for those remaining in foster and group homes, resources [...]

Mayors and city governments want to promote economic growth to fill the coffers, pay for services and raise incomes. But what about the injustices of persistent inequality, racial and ethnic segregation and beyond? Can growth instead be harnessed to support equality, diversity and a higher quality of life for everyone? Harvard Professor Susan Fainstein speaks [...]

Milano The New School for Management and Urban Policy and the Center for New York City Affairs presented the 2010 Bill Green Forum. For the first time in history, women account for half of the U.S. workforce, according to the recent Shriver Report. Even as the recession reshapes the workforce, women are less likely to [...]

About 1.3 million working people in New York City have no paid sick leave, and pressure is mounting on employers to provide it. Local chambers of commerce predict the cost would be in the billions; labor advocates argue it is simply a matter of fairness, and the City Council has begun to move on legislation. [...]

According to advocates, families of at least 1 in 5 New York City children still rely on soup kitchens and food pantries, despite free school breakfast and subsidized school lunches. President Obama pledged to end child hunger in the US by 2015, and the reauthorization of the federal Child Nutrition Act is expected by September. [...]

Major changes are afoot in juvenile justice. Governor Paterson recently proposed long-awaited reforms for upstate facilities where young teens are incarcerated. But he also proposed large cuts to alternative-to-detention and diversion programs. Meanwhile, the Bloomberg administration has merged the city’s juvenile justice agency with children’s services, potentially accelerating expansion of community- and family-centered services for [...]