Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

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  • Botswana's Radical Experiment in National Unity

    Botswanans have deprioritized deeply held tribal identities, created a national identity, and found societal stability by using the practice of randomly assigning civil servants to different parts of the country. Sending the over 120,000 civil servants to work away from friends and family, immersed in a new culture, has led to intercultural exchanges, new friendships, and even many marriages that resulted in children whose parents belong to different tribes. Increasing contact across tribal groups led to thousands of new personal relationships, which reduced prejudices and created a shared national culture.

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  • Could a Simple Intervention Fight a Suicide Crisis?

    In the 1960s, a psychologist and a team of researchers in San Francisco began sending “caring letters" as a means of suicide intervention, but the practice didn't continue outside of the research study, despite showing positive results. Today though, a clinical psychologist has begun to reintroduce the intervention, via text messages and emails, as a practice to specifically help U.S. service members and veterans.

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  • Black Grandmothers Feed their Communities, and Pass on Food Traditions—Online

    A program called Grandma’s Hands has begun hosting virtual dinner parties as a means of connecting and engaging with Black grandmothers during the coronavirus pandemic. Funded by a grant from the Oregon Department of Agriculture, the program also helps connect participants with fresh produce from Black- and Indigenous-run farms in the Portland area.

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  • Citizens' Assemblies let everyday people make important city decisions. Let's bring them to Philly.

    Citizens' assemblies, where a randomly selected representative sample of people work together to make decisions and find policy solutions to social issues, is an effective approach to decision-making that bridges polarization. It also minimizes the influence of special interests in decision making. America In One Room gathered 500 people in Texas to address topics such as immigration and healthcare, among others, and it showed that people tend to find common ground after deliberative discussions. Citizens’ assemblies have successfully informed policy decisions in Ireland, the United Kingdom, and France.

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  • Firefighters work through PTSD with peer support, counseling

    A counseling program introduced at Glendale Fire Department has now spread to a handful of other departments across the state after reporting that a significant percentage of firefighters were using the counseling services and had used fewer sick hours. The program offers individual counseling, group support, and training on peer counseling.

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  • We Hear You

    Early in the pandemic, APIENC, a community organization led by trans, non-binary, and queer Asian and Pacific Islanders in San Francisco, started a phone tree to offer help to people: getting groceries or meals, providing emotional support, or whatever else was needed in a community experiencing racial and other forms of bias on top of pandemic stresses. Only one person took the help – until the group held workshops on how to ask for help. Dozens of requests for help could then be met. This is the middle segment in the third in a series on anti-Asian racism during the pandemic.

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  • The Courage to Listen

    Following a series of public controversies over sexual assault, Jackson's Community Safety Network convened a series of training seminars to foster a response that no amount of legislation or criminal prosecutions could offer: to cultivate culture change based on greater understanding and empathy about what survivors go through. The seminars capitalized on a surge in public interest, and misunderstandings, surrounding sexual assault allegations against a public official and other public officials' behavior. One survivor who was encouraged to go public praised the community effort.

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  • 'It's on the writers': How The Correspondent drives interaction between members and its journalists Audio icon

    To entice paying subscribers to its ad-free news site, and to spark informed discourse in its comments section, The Correspondent promotes an unusual degree of interaction between its journalists and readers and actively seeds discussions with experts’ comments. Unlike often-toxic discussion forums on other news sites, The Correspondents' forums foster collaborations between writers and readers on prospective articles and in analyses after publication. While it's too soon to tell if the strategy will retain and expand subscriber rolls, the forums show an unusual level of quality and civility.

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  • Grieving Murdered Children During A Pandemic

    The nationwide surge in gun violence during the pandemic has forced support groups for grieving survivors to persevere in their work using different tools and strategies in a process that depends on intimate forms of counseling. In Durham, one "grief circle" associated with the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham still hosts anti-violence vigils after each killing. Its support group for parents and grandparents of victims, led by fellow survivors for maximum effect, shifted to Zoom and telephone calls. Among the beneficiaries of the support: the organizers themselves, whose work gives them purpose.

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  • How Nigerians coped with mental stress during COVID-19 lockdown

    Funding from a professional coaching, therapy, and counseling academy has helped a certified life coach and non-clinical psychotherapist offer free sessions to people in Nigeria who are struggling to cope with setbacks brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The program, which utilizes video calls and WhatsApp messaging, has broadened access for those who may not be able to seek help due to financial constraints.

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