Achieving permanency for LGBTQ youth

This article brings together two significant efforts in the child welfare field: achieving permanence for youth in out-of-home care and meeting the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) youth. During the past several years, a national movement has taken place to assure all children and youth have a permanent family connection before leaving the child welfare system; however, LGBTQ youth are not routinely included in the permanency discussions. At the same time, efforts in addressing the needs of LGBTQ youth have increased, but permanency is rarely mentioned as a need. This article offers models of permanence and practices to facilitate permanence with LGBTQ youth and their families. It also offers a youth-driven, individualized process, using youth development principles to achieve relational, physical, and legal permanence. Reunification efforts are discussed, including services, supports, and education required for youth to return to their family of origin. For those who cannot return home, other family resources are explored. The article also discusses cultural issues as they affect permanence for LGBTQ youth, and, finally, addresses the need for ongoing support services to sustain and support permanency.     

A part of something: The importance of transitional living programs within a Housing First framework for youth experiencing homelessness

Young people experiencing homelessness face severe threats to their health and well-being and while we know quite a bit about these risks, much less is understood about the usefulness of the services currently being provided to mitigate them. Transitional living programs (TLPs) are one of three core strategies executed by the federal government of the United States to address youth homelessness. The purpose of this phenomenological, qualitative study was to understand the impact over time of the housing and support services provided by a TLP directly from the perspectives of formerly homeless youth. Data was collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 32 young people who exited a TLP located in Chicago, Illinois between 1 and 11 years ago. Participants believed TLPs to be an essential part of our solution to address youth homelessness, identifying themes of family, individual connections, community and preparedness that they believe uniquely qualify TLPs as a developmentally-appropriate program model for youth in times of housing crisis.     

Beyond resilience: Resistance in the lives of LGBTQ youth

Resilience has come to define a wide breadth of impactful research on marginalized groups, including lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth. This resilience framework shifted the deficit “at-risk” model of research on marginalized populations to a more nuanced strengths-based perspective. In this critical review article, we examine this research trend to understand how the shift to resilience has shaped patterns of LGBTQ youth research. In doing so, this piece calls for a more sophisticated engagement with operationalizing resilience–which is vaguely defined and often upholds dominant relations in society, such as capitalistic, heteronormative values of success and happiness. We show how a shift to understanding resistance, joy, and pleasure in LGBTQ youth's lives promotes a more dynamic and complicated look at how marginalized groups navigate their social worlds and exert power in shaping these worlds. Acknowledging and uplifting LGBTQ youth's resistance and power are necessary in pushing scholarly dialogue and the possible interventions informed by research towards a more fully transformative framework in changing and dismantling oppressive societal structures.     

Feminist and queer criminology: A vital place for theorizing LGBTQ youth

Creating safe environments for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer and/or questioning (LGBTQ) youth has become a significant public health concern. Despite the disparities in the risk factors associated with identifying as a member of the LGBTQ community, the theoretical frameworks for understanding these issues, particularly within criminology, have been limited. The purpose of this work is to review the historical treatment of gender and sexual orientation within criminology. More specifically, this work reviews how gender was introduced into criminology through the work of feminist criminology, followed by the need for theorization that further analyzed sexual orientation. This then became the focus of queer criminology. After tracing the historical development of gender and sexual orientation, the author uses the theoretical foundations of both to show how it applies to recognizing the issues faced by LGBTQ youth. Finally, the author discusses why consideration of these frameworks is paramount in understanding the issues faced by LGBTQ youth, as well as how such consideration and understanding can help mend the existing gap in providing safer environments for LGBTQ youth.     

Puerto Rican Families in New York City

No abstract available for this article.     

Mixed results in a transitional planning program for alternative school students

Disciplinary alternative schools have a reputation as gateways to the juvenile and criminal justice systems. The authors conducted an evaluation of an intervention (Strategies for Success) designed to divert seventh-, eighth-, and ninth-grade alternative school students from this gateway. They used propensity score matching and a multivariate random effects model to estimate program impacts and found that the program not only increased attendance rates, at least in the short term, but also increased the likelihood of reassignment to alternative schools. The discussion focuses on possible reasons and solutions for high rates of return to alternative school and for the erosion of program effects.     

Estimating stormwater runoff for community gardens in New York City

Community gardens are critical ecological infrastructure in cities providing an important link between people and urban nature. The documented benefits of community gardens include food production, recreational opportunities, and a wide number of social benefits such as improving community stability, reducing crime, and physical and mental health benefits. While much of the literature cites community gardens as providing environmental benefits for cities, there is little empirical evidence of these benefits. Here we examine the stormwater runoff benefits of community gardens by comparing two methods to estimate absorption rates of stormwater runoff in urban community gardens of New York City. The first method uses general land cover classes as determined by a land cover dataset; the second methods adds a land cover specific to community gardens — raised beds, typically used for food production. We find that in addition to the stormwater mitigation performed by pervious surfaces within a garden site, community gardens in New York City may be retaining an additional 12 million gallons (~45 million liters) of stormwater annually due to the widespread use of raised beds with compost as a soil amendment.     

New York: The Animated City

Abstract

The urban landscape of New York City is one that is familiar to many, but, through the medium of animation, this familiarity has been consistently challenged. Often metamorphic, and always meticulously constructed, animated imagery encourages reflective thinking. Focusing on the themes of construction, destruction, and interactivity, this article seeks to cast critical light upon the animated double life that New York City has lived through the following moving image texts: Disney’s Fantasia 2000 (1999), Patrick Jean’s computer-generated short Pixels (2009), and Rockstar Games’ open-world blockbuster Grand Theft Auto IV (2008).     

The need for safe spaces: Exploring the experiences of homeless LGBTQ youth in shelters

Studies indicate LGBTQ youth are at higher risk of homelessness (2–13 times) than their heterosexual cisgender counterparts and that they represent a substantial portion of youth utilizing housing and shelter services. Some authors have provided anecdotal (rather than empirical) examples of LGBTQ youth experiencing abuse or mistreatment in shelters; most studies focusing on LGBTQ homeless youth have been conducted in large cities and have rarely collected data from both youth and providers. Using an exploratory, grounded theory approach, this study utilized data from interviews with LGBTQ youth with a history of homelessness as well as service providers working with this population in a mid-sized Northeastern city. Findings suggest youth experience multiple challenges, barriers, and mistreatment in the shelters; further, data suggests several ideas about how to transform shelters to better meet the needs of LGBTQ youth.     

A demand function for the New York City abortion market

The 1970 abortion law in New York State made abortion on request legal. A sudden increase in demand for abortions was anticipated. In order to plan for the development of free-standing abortion clinics in New York City to meet this anticipated demand, the nature of their demand function was calculated. The clients of these free-standing clinics were mainly white, high-income women from outside New York City. Surprisingly enough, given the urgency of need situation of many of the prospective clients, the demand was found to be highly elastic. In other words, higher prices caused a lowering of demand for the abortion services. It is assumed that alternative services were used instead.     

The New York City neighborhood-based services strategy

The New York City Administration for Children's Services (ACS) instituted a neighborhood-based services system through the realignment of all foster care, preventive, and protective services along community district lines. ACS, with its community partners, also formed neighborhood-based networks to improve service coordination and collaboration among key community stakeholders and to shape a multisystem strategy tailored to each district informed by child welfare data. Based on analysis of neighborhood-specific census tract child welfare data, ACS initiated the Community Partnership to Strengthen Families project to address the disproportionate number of foster care placements originating from a small group of high-need communities, including Manhattan's Central Harlem. This article describes examples of specific strategies based on the Central Harlem experience.     

Person centered planning in a transition program for Bronx youth with disabilities

The City University of New York conducted its Youth Transition Demonstration Project from 2003 to 2010. This federally-funded research and demonstration project was designed to help transition-age youth with disabilities receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) achieve maximum self-sufficiency. More than 400 youth living in the high-poverty county of Bronx, NY were enrolled in a treatment group and offered a series of interventions, including Person-Centered Planning (PCP). Quantitative and qualitative research methods show that this process was linked to improved educational and employment outcomes for youth. Sixty-five percent of youth enrolled in the project participated in at least one PCP session. Youth from lower-income families were less likely to participate in PCP, as were youth with mood disorders. Youth who did participate in PCP were more likely to hold at least one paid job. Youth focused on relationships, personal strengths and goals during these sessions, which proved an important part of their transition process. Recommendations for educators, service-providers and policy-makers are included for professionals seeking to implement collaborative transition services for youth and their families.     

纽约区划条例简介

1916年,纽约市颁布了全美第一部综合的区划条例,从此开创了美国区划政策的先河。区划通过对建筑物体量、人口密度和土地用途的控制,成为实施规划意图的有效工具,从而塑造出崭新的城市形象。一、纽约区划条例的发展历程19世纪末20世纪初,随着钢结构技术的采用和电梯的不断改进,过去制约建筑高度的技术问题已彻底消除。高层建筑的兴起使得曼哈顿的建筑天际线呈现出独特的形式。同时,在曼哈顿地区还建设了大量的多户住宅区,并与之配套形成了许多新的商业网点;商务办公区域在不断扩大。到1900年,纽约市已成为美国的金融中心。纽约市特别是曼哈顿南部的过度开发,带来了一系列的问题。如1915年百老汇南部42层的公正大厦和它所形成的巨大阴影,严重影响了周围建筑     

纽约"字母城"社区花园

纽约市有上百个大小不同的社区花园,其中60个以上集中在人口稠密的下东城区.记得刚来纽约找房子的时候,居住在纽约市多年的友人建议我不要找下东城中的"字母城"区,也就是位于A、B、C、D大道上的公寓.印象中的字母城似乎是个环境非常复杂的地方.直到来了纽约一年后,在朋友的带领下,才以冒险的心情进入字母城.那时正是纽约市长计划收回市内社区花园、引起一片反对声浪的时候,所以对字母城街道内随处可见的小花园感到十分好奇.