Roundup: Art by Detained Youth Auctioned; MSNBC Show About Juvenile Justice; And Much More

Upcoming Trainings, Conferences & a Call for Conference Proposals

• The National Association of Youth Courts -- youth courts, teen courts, student courts, and peer courts -- will hold a regional training in Salt Lake City, UT, June 7-9, 2009.
• Chestnut Health Systems is holding a train-the-trainer GAIN training July 21-24, 2009, in Normal, IL.
• The United States Department of Education is holding its Safe and Drug-Free Schools Conference in August 3-5 in National Harbor, MD.
• Presentation proposals for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention's (OJJDP) Ensuring Safe and Fair Treatment of Youth in the Juvenile Justice System conference are due June 5, 2009, according to the National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN). 

News Updates

• The Harlem's Children's Zone (featured in Paul Tough's book, "Whatever it Takes") hasn't just produced good results, it's produced amazing results, according to this editorial by David Brooks in The New York Times. The Harvard economist who evaluated the charter schools in the Zone, wrote, “The results changed my life as a researcher because I am no longer interested in marginal changes.”

• I thought it was good news when I saw that North Carolina may raise the minimum age at which juveniles can be tried as adults from 16 to 18, but here's a chilling perspective: UNICEF praised South Africa this week for passing a new Child Justice Act that raises the minimum age of child offenders from 7 to 10 --!
• The American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM) has begun certifying physicians as addiction specialists. 
• Eleven years of federal monitoring of the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice finally came to an end after the state made significant strides in the "areas of education, medical, mental health, protection from harm and quality assurance."
• Art by detained youth in Travis County, TX was auctioned off last week in a unique program. I can no longer find my source for this, but when the grant for the art program ended, the volunteer coordinator worked with the local real estate council to set up the art auction to support it. 
• New research shows how cocaine actually affects the brain, paving the way for medications to address cocaine addiction. 
• The MSNBC show "Lockup" will air six episodes from inside the Lake County, Indiana juvenile justice system beginning July 4th. "Each episode ... follows individual teens through a complicated web of incarceration, placement, education and rehab." (Access was granted by the Indiana Supreme Court and its Chief Justice.)