University of Chicago

During this pandemic of the coronavirus, I have been severely affected in multiple ways, mentally, emotionally and academically. During this time, it is difficult to be away from everyone and everything I know.

A $30 million initiative to help thousands of transition-aged foster youth secure stable housing, pursue higher education and receive better services in the Bay Area is being launched by a San Francisco-based anti-poverty organization.

New research from Nobel Prize-winning economist James Heckman suggests that the benefits of early childhood education may extend much further than previously thought. In a pair of research papers released today through the University of Chicago’s Center for the Economics of Human Development, Heckman makes the case that high-quality early childhood interventions can positively impact not just the children in these programs as they move through life, but even the children of the original participants decades later.

When a series of family crises left her 3-year-old niece in need of a permanent home, April Funches opened her doors. Although the move was in the works for months, the little girl arrived lacking enough clothes and other necessities, which meant Funches’ budget took an immediate hit.

He had a vision for life. It was all pasted up on his “vision board” – words like family, opportunities, genius, world’s greatest, climbing the corporate ladder, starts with a single step.

Maria Serrano couldn’t wait to leave foster care behind when she turned 18 two years ago. “I didn’t want anything to do with the system,” she said. In foster care since she was 15, Serrano felt unstable in the child welfare system.

Researchers and child welfare advocates will gather in downtown Los Angeles on May 10 to explore the preliminary findings of the California Youth Transitions to Adulthood Study (CalYOUTH). CalYOUTH is a five-year research project looking at the impact of the California Fostering Connections to Success Act, a California law known as AB 12 that extended foster care to age 21 and took effect in 2012.

States’ refusal to expand Medicaid eligibility is barring an estimated 2.6 million low-income Americans from affordable, necessary mental healthcare, according to a 2015 report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

In December, a new study from the University of Chicago that found that, in New York County, no matter the amount of counseling treatment given to homeless mothers transitioning into affordable housing, mental illness and distress only receded after significant time in permanent housing.