United States high schools, I feel, do a pretty good job of supporting the academic, social needs, and interests of today's students. In today's schools, we have so many alternative education programs, extra curricular activities, and other programs that it may even be difficult for a student to decide which ones to participate in.

With some 15,000 children and teens arrested for sex offenses each year, communities clearly have a stake in effective treatment for young offenders. Fortunately, there are programs helping adolescents re-join society successfully and safely. Linda Baker looks at Oregon's Counterpoint center.

They do crafts. They sell cookies. And twice a month the girls in the Columbia River, Oregon Girl Scouts Beyond Bars troop spend a couple of hours at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility with their moms. Linda Baker explains how this growing program works to improve the odds for families divided by incarceration.

When the boundless optimism of a dog encounters the wary affection of a young man in a juvenile detention center, what happens? Nancy Hill reports on Project Pooch, an Oregon program that pairs young offenders with hard-to-place strays, to the benefit of both.

Waypoint Corvallis is committed to helping local schools in their fundraising efforts. Their goal is to educate people about corporate programs and bring local businesses into partnership with their local schools.

Stand For Children promotes grass-roots action on behalf of improving policies and funding for children's programs, with chapters in Massachusetts, Oregon and Tennessee.

Children First for Oregon has served as the state's leading voice for children since 1991.
A non-profit, non-partisan group, Children First uses public education, research, and
community capacity building initiatives to speak to the legislature, media and
local communities on behalf of Oregon's children and families.

As of year 2004, eight states and two large cities had at least 95 percent of children younger than age six enrolled in fully operational, population-based immunization registries, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Center for Health and Health Care in Schools has the full story.

Issue Areas:
Foster Care
Life Skills
Mentoring (Peer)
Youth Aging Out of Foster Care
Youth as Spokespeople