Online, there is some new commentary on “The Poverty Clinic,” my article on Nadine Burke and the Adverse Childhood Experiences study that the New Yorker published in March.

Here’s a column by Richard Gilliam, a current prison inmate, published on KALW radio’s criminal-justice blog. On Chicago Magazine’s blog, Whet Moser reflected on how the ACE research connects to Alex Kotlowitz’s reporting on Ceasefire, an anti-violence group in Chicago. (Alex is second from the right, above.) And on the Huffington Post, John Thompson wrote that my article articulated “a theory of everything that starts with the neurochemical imbalances created by childhood trauma.”

In May, Geoffrey Canada visited the Chicago neighborhood of Roseland (where I’ve spent a lot of time during the past school year reporting for my next book, “The Success Equation”). Geoff spoke to students and community members at Fenger High School at the kickoff of the Roseland Children’s Initiative, a Promise Neighborhood-like project sponsored by SGA Youth & Family Services (whose annual benefit I spoke at in 2010).

There was coverage in the Chicago Defender, the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago News Cooperative, and Catalyst Chicago, which reported that the ultimate goal of the children’s initiative is

to reach 65 percent of the roughly 14,000 young people in Roseland, enough to bring the neighborhood to a “tipping point” toward improvement.

]]> http://paultough.com/wordpress/2011/07/02/roseland/feed/ 0 http://paultough.com/wordpress/2011/03/22/new-yorker-story-and-radio-interview/ http://paultough.com/wordpress/2011/03/22/new-yorker-story-and-radio-interview/#comments Wed, 23 Mar 2011 03:12:51 +0000 Paul Tough http://paultough.com/wordpress/?p=930 Last week I had a story in the New Yorker about Nadine Burke, a pediatrician in San Francisco, and the work she is doing to develop a clinical treatment protocol  from the emerging research about childhood trauma and its longterm effects. My reporting about Dr. Burke will become part of my new book, “The Success Equation,” which Houghton Mifflin Harcourt will publish next year.

The New Yorker story got me booked on “RadioWest,” an hourlong public-affairs show on KUER in Salt Lake City. The host, Doug Fabrizio, asked some great questions, as did the many callers, from Utah and around the country (the show is also broadcast nationwide on Sirius XM). There’s now audio of the whole hour available here.

The article also played a part in this fascinating blog post from Whet Moser, on Chicagomag.com, which manages to tie together my reporting on Dr. Burke with Alex Kotlowitz’s great reporting in the New York Times Magazine on the Ceasefire initiative in Chicago, as well as a handful of other news reports and scientific studies. It’s well worth reading to get some broader context on the question of childhood trauma.

Here’s how the conference web site describes what we’ll be talking about:

Everyone agrees that education plays a critical role in eradicating poverty, but is it enough? How critical are other poverty-focused interventions to improving student outcomes? In this panel, practitioners will discuss which services have the greatest impact on poverty in their communities and what they’re doing to address the needs of low-income children and families.

From Zanesville, Ohio, a report on a coalition led by the local United Way.

From Richmond, California, a radio report on an ambitious project to improve outcomes in the city’s Iron Triangle district. Ken Lau, who is leading the group applying for a Promise Neighborhood grant, is quoted:

LAU: Whether we become a Promise Neighborhood or not, we are inspired enough at this point and see what’s working that we will continue to move. It’s like, if you all are here just because you want the Promise Neighborhood money and that’s going to be your make or break, you probably really shouldn’t be here because you need to be in here for the long haul. And you need to have something put together that will in fact improve that community.

From Chicago, a great story in Catalyst Chicago profiling five separate groups that have filed applications from that city.

In the Austin Chronicle, a three-story package on the two groups there that have filed applications. From the main story:

Paul Tough spent five years reporting on the Harlem Children’s Zone (see “The Canada Model“) and says there’s “an R&D feel” to the federal offer. “The Harlem Child­ren’s Zone is one particular model,” he said, “but this isn’t about cloning it in other cities. It’s about adapting it for different places.” There will be certain shared components of any successful application, not least that schools will be used as the logistical hub for any proposal. “That’s why it’s being run by the Department of Education and not Health or anyone else,” Tough said. But this endeavor is about taking all the agencies and entities that are already in place – educational, medical, nutritional, charitable, governmental, commercial, and legal – and getting them to work together – better, smarter, and more effectively.

Complicating matters, though, is this news, from the Chronicle of Philanthropy:

Chances appear dim that President Obama will get anywhere near the full amount of money he requested in next year’s budget for Promise Neighborhoods — the program to help nonprofit groups set up antipoverty projects modeled on the Harlem Children’s Zone.

The administration requested $210-million for the effort in 2011. But the Senate Appropriations Committee last week proposed spending only $20-million, while a House Appropriations subcommittee voted earlier to allocate $60-million.

On May 20, I’ll be the guest speaker at the annual benefit dinner of SGA Youth & Family Services, a non-profit in Chicago. Details here.

From the Chicago Defender, news of an ambitious effort to bring Promise Neighborhood funding to the city’s Woodlawn neighborhood. The Woodlawn Children’s Promise Zone is a collaboration between Bishop Arthur Brazier [above] and Prof. Charles Payne and others at the University of Chicago. As the paper reports:

More than one year ago, the pastor emeritus of Apostolic Church of God, Bishop Arthur Brazier began working with schools in his area and quickly became concerned with how little the community was doing to improve the academic standards in the schools.
He learned about the Harlem Children’s Zone and paid a visit to the organization that focuses on the three academic levels of a child’s life — Baby College, Promise Academy and College Success Office – within a 96-square block area in Harlem, N.Y.
Brazier then drew from HCZ’s model and convened a coalition of community leaders, educators and parents to develop a plan to improve Woodlawn’s 10,000 children’s lives from birth through college years and beyond. The Woodlawn Children’s Promise Zone was born, he said.

I also think that there are many, many people in non-profits who are tired of business-as-usual, tired of feeling like their work is a drop in the ocean, tired of talking themselves into believing in what they do every day.  Some of those people must have been in the audience that night, looking for a thicker strand of hope to pull on.

From what I’ve read, hope is much of what Geoffrey Canada’s concept is riding on now: hope with an almost desperate promise of metrics, if we could all be patient for a while.  And many of us are willing to be patient, because we believe as we have believed for years, that he’s making it happen – he’s doing it.  He’s doing what we thought should be done all along: comprehensive services, for all stages of childhood, supportive of the family and community as well as the child.  This is the silent promise we’ve been imagining, and Canada actually managed to speak the promise out loud.

From the Loyola Law School web site, a report on last week’s event:

The forum, which included a keynote address by author and former New York Times magazine editor Paul Tough (pictured left), explored the The Harlem Children’s Zone approach to inner city education, as well as addressed the recent plans by the Obama administration to offer new funding to replicate twenty “Promise Neighborhoods” throughout the country. …

Tough and the panel of Chicago experts discussed the potential impact of a Promise Neighborhood in Chicago, how to improve on the HCZ model, as well as addressed issues that distinguish Chicago from Harlem and other communities seeking to create a “Children’s Zone.” Expert panelists included Loyola law alumnus Azim Ramelize, Chicago Dept. of Children and Youth Services; Chris Brown, Local Initiatives Support Corporation; Dr. Bradley Stolbach, La Rabida Children’s Hospital; and Barbara Bowman, Chief Officer, Early Education, Chicago Public Schools.