JUVENILE JUSTICE NEWS

As part of President Biden’s Unity Agenda and Mental Health Strategy, HHS selected JJBH’s FostrSpace as one of just 14 national finalists for the Children and Youth Resilience Challenge. On May 2, we showcased our innovation for a national audience of federal and community leaders in Washington D.C.. Check it out here: https://t.co/pQRFXja2XP

For Mental Health Awareness Month in May, and MPR’s “Call to Mind” initiative: A program about “The Science of Happiness” from the Commonwealth Club of California.

Two psychologists discuss how adults and children can deal with negative emotions such as fear, anxiety and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Commonwealth Club and Born This Way Foundation Invite you to a conversation focused on the intersection of kindness and mental health during these unprecedented times. In this conversation, moderated by Maya Smith, you’ll hear from mental health experts, advocates and young people on the many ways the COVID-19 pandemic has uprooted our normality, how we can find ways to spread kindness while also focusing on our mental health.

Happiness may seem elusive even under ideal circumstances, let alone under current conditions that have brought normal society to a halt. 
But happiness is attainable even under the most trying conditions if people learn to take a few moments to find, appreciate and open their mind to it…

Part of The Commonwealth  Club’s series on mental health, dedicated in memory of Nancy Friend Pritzker, with support from the John Pritzker Family Fund

Critics argue that jails and prisons are the most visible evidence of the failing of America’s public mental health system and that the most heartbreaking failures are in the field of juvenile justice.

San Francisco is closing its juvenile hall, part of a reform effort to move away from adult-style treatment for juvenile offenders. Will the rehabilitative, rather than punitive approach work?

The annual cost of incarcerating a youth in juvenile hall in California has doubled over the past eight years, a new state survey shows, putting pressure on counties to answer for skyrocketing costs even as serious juvenile crime decreases.

Violent crime by youths in California plummeted over the past two decades and arrests of juveniles for violent felonies fell 68 percent. Juvenile halls that were expanded across the state stand mostly empty, while the costs per youth have skyrocketed. This Chronicle investigation examines this unexpected and largely unrecognized shift and its implications for criminal justice and society.

Teens who get in trouble with the law have high rates of substance abuse and mental health issues, but the problems are even worse for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer adolescents who are first-time offenders, researchers say in a study published today in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

For the past three years, Dr. Andrea Zorbas has worked at the San Francisco Stress and Anxiety Center located South-of-Market, providing psychological counseling for adults. According to Zorbas, her clients, who often come with “career-related” worries, “all have an undergraduate degree, and most have a postgraduate degree,” and largely work in the tech industry.