SUMMARY: President Trump called Saturday’s synagogue shooting anti-Semitic and “an assault on humanity.” But a chorus of voices argues that the President himself has fostered a national atmosphere of hatred. William Brangham speaks with Jonathan Greenblatt head of the Anti-Defamation League, and historian Deborah Lipstadt about social media's role as an amplifier and politicians who "embolden" violence.
SUMMARY:A doctor known for compassionate care of HIV patients early in the AIDS crisis. A “vivacious” 97-year-old. Brothers who “looked out for one another.” A new grandfather. A youth baseball coach. A dentist who volunteered at free clinics. For Pittsburgh’s Jewish community, Tuesday marked the beginning of shiva, a somber seven days of mourning for the 11 people killed in Saturday's synagogue shooting.
PITTSBURGH — At 13, Lafayette Goode had to face a situation that, for most children, is unimaginable. He had no place to call home.
“I got kicked out of my house,” Goode said. “That was the hardest thing I ever had to deal with because I couldn't believe my mom was really trying to kick me out at this age. I'm so young, where am I going to go?”
Goode was among the roughly 400,000 young people in foster care in the U.S. at any given time, according to David Sanders of the Casey Family Programs, an organization working to improve foster care across the nation.
“I think, often times, we forget that, to get into foster care, they were abused or neglected probably to a level that is quite significant,” Sanders said.
Those personal traumas, coupled with the fact that many often move from home-to-home and school-to-school, has led to grim educational outcomes for foster youth nationally. Only about half finish high school and of that group, only 20 percent go on to college. Fewer than one in 10 of those students actually earns a bachelor's degree.
Goode, now 19, is proud to have graduated high school on time and plans to enroll at a trade school this spring. He credits the help of Allegheny County's Youth Support Partners, including Justin Quast for helping him reach those milestones navigate the difficult and often confusing world of foster care.
Youth Support Partners like Quast are young adults who were, themselves, involved in the child welfare system, but have since been trained to become peer-to-peer mentors and advocates for young people currently in foster care.
“He's close to my age [and] we understand each other,” said Goode. “As soon as we met we just clicked.”
“We feel strongly [that], if you've been there, if you've walked in their shoes, you are much more effective and can relate,” said Marc Cherna, Allegheny County's Director of Human Services.
Creating Youth Support Partners for foster youth is just one of the many changes Cherna has made in his 20 years with the county in an effort to improve lives and outcomes for children in the system. He also created Educational Liaisons, which makes sure that foster youth are not only staying in school, but succeeding by getting them tutoring or other supports when needed. They also help with credit recovery, scholarships, university applications and take high school seniors to visit college campuses.
In addition to creating those positions, Cherna's reforms have included reducing caseloads, increasing family support to keep youth in their own homes and schools when appropriate, and collecting data to determine which programs are effective and where investments should be made. Allegheny County's efforts to improve the lives of foster youth are considered a national model and Cherna often visits cities around the country to share what has worked in his community.
But he remains realistic, acknowledging there is much more work to be done.
“I've been doing this work for over 40 years and if there was a magic bullet we wouldn't be talking about it today,” Cherna said. “This is very complex work. There is no easy solution.”
I am Retired U.S. Navy (22yrs) and a Vietnam Veteran. After my Navy retirement I was in the computer related industry, now retired. In 2000 I was a registered Republican and voted for George W. Bush. Six months of having Bush in the Whitehouse forced me to re-evaluate my political stance. I had always thought of myself as a Moderate Republican, but was a Republican by "default" NOT because of close examination of the GOP. Due to what has happened in America since 2000, I now consider myself a progressive, and registered as a Non-Affiliated voter.
*Anti-First Amendment policies that attempt to turn America into a theocracy by enshrining ANY religious belief as law.
* Any attempt to suppress human or Constitutional rights.
* Any law or policy that supports discrimination based on religion, ethnicity, race/color, gender, sexual orientation, or any law that does NOT support Equal Treatment under the law.
*Any law or policy that attempts to suppress Freedom of the Press or Free Speech.
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