Black to the Land Coalition connects Detroit's BIPOC communities with the outdoors

With pressures of depression, anxiety, and suicide on the rise, teenagers in the United States are challenged to find the comfortable outlet and accessibility for emotional support. The Crisis Text Line offers a counseling service through mobile texting, which reduces the shame that can occur when approaching an in-person counselor, and expands access to professional mental health counseling nationwide.

For first-time youth criminal offenders, the traditional American jury falls short in encouraging behavioral change and may even set the juvenile on a course for repeated crimes. Washington, DC’s Youth Court is a jury that tries juveniles for minor non-violent offenses and offers peer pressure to prompt positive behavioral change. The DC Youth Court is one of many in the United States that reduces crime and future court costs.

Child-mentoring programs around the United States have helped at-risk youth during crucial years of development. However, New York City's Friends of the Children has improved the model by placing at-risk youth with adult mentors for 12 years. The forged relationships between mentor and developing child have greatly reduced the probability of teenage pregnancy, incarceration, and school drop-outs, and is cost saving.

Sexual assault, rape, and sexism are social problems that young women face and many feel powerless to create change. Non-profit organizations such as SPARK and WAM have trained teenage girls to be advocates for themselves. Online campaigns and social media have also made teenage girls feel empowered to express themselves and make social change.

Millions of families of arrested individuals do not know what to do to help, how to obtain a lawyer, or what the process entails in the court system. Created by Albert Cobarrubius Justice Project, participatory defense is a type of community organizing that teaches and empowers people who face criminal charges. Individuals know how to work with attorneys in order to navigate the system and ultimately feel equipped to become drivers of their own change.

Despite strong evidence that school-based physical activity improves children’s cognitive skills, concentration, and behavior, schools under pressure to produce quantitative results and decrease bullying have drastically cut back on recess in recent years. An Oakland-based nonprofit organization called Playworks is working to make healthy play accessible for more children and show schools how productive recess can be to the whole academic world.

Civic leaders in the U.S. struggle to effectively help their distressed neighborhoods. East Lake, Atlanta, created a replicable model that mixes residents of differing socio-economic status, and focuses on education and health in the area.

Global social and economic problems are difficult to change. However, fan-activism fuels the interests of fans of popular young adult fiction. Books such as Harry Potter and the Hunger Games have inspired activist groups that raise awareness of global hunger, reading, and relief supplies to impoverished nations, among others. Being a fan has served as a bridge to become politically active and solve the world’s problems.

In Clayton County, Georgia, the Second Chance Court is using a different tactic to give offenders the opportunity to move forward. The program, started in 2010, allows selected teens to attend counseling and classes – often with their parents – centered around self improvement and appropriate behavior. Collaborating with a community organization, the Second Chance Court has been able to reduce recidivism in youth.

Delaware has been working to make sure that all college-ready graduates, regardless of socioeconomic status, make it to college. With financial reasons standing in the way of many qualified students, the state has worked on multiple levels to make this a possibility.