Let’s Make Make Pride Month Last All Year

Being a kid can be hard. Being a foster kid can be even harder. Being an LGBTQ foster kid can sometimes be so hard that kids end up on the streets instead of protected by the agency that is responsible for their care. The child welfare system is charged—first and foremost—with providing for the physical…

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Valentine’s Day: Beyond Romance

Valentine’s Day: Beyond Romance Particularly this year, it is important to reach beyond flowers, chocolates, and heart-shaped gifts to the love that binds us to family, friends, and community. Too many among us now live in fear of losing those they hold most dear. Parents worry that they will be sent back to a country…

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What’s So Hard about Hope?

Our sense of optimism and the capacity to hope are rooted in the first months of life. When infants are fed when they are hungry, comforted when they are distressed, changed when they are wet or soiled, gently rocked to sleep when they are tired, and greeted with a smile when they awaken, they learn…

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When We Look Away

by Toni Heineman Monday morning brought news of another mass shooting. I was startled when I realized that I had silently sighed, “Well, only two dead this time.” Only two real people—teenagers with families, friends, neighbors, teachers, coaches, and scores of people who will never have a chance to know them—gone forever, for reasons that…

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Continuing Confusion

People have some strange ideas about sex and gender. Let’s take the current contention over who gets to use what bathroom. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what I’m referring to, here’s a quick recap. In March of 2015, North Carolina passed House Bill 2 (HB2), which requires anyone using a public bathroom…

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Different AND Same

This Sunday at 2 a.m., a man walked into a packed nightclub carrying a rifle and a pistol. He killed 49 people and injured 53 others. His victims were primarily gay Latino men; it was “Latin Night” at the gay club, Pulse. It is the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, and it was targeted…

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Mental Health Month

Last month, settling into my seat for the flight home from a conference, the young man seated next to me briefly recounted the many delays he’d endured in trying to escape the cold of the lingering Midwest winter for a week on the beach with friends. When he asked about my travels I said that…

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Child Abuse Prevention Month

Although spring officially begins near the end of March, it is often the longer days of April and the transformation of buds into blossoming trees and flowers that make us feel that spring has really arrived. It is fitting that we turn our attention to the prevention of child abuse in the spring, with its…

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Fostering Art Reincarnated

For eight years we ran a very successful program in San Francisco for current and former foster teens and young adults. Classes met once a week through the school year to focus on photography and creative writing. At first they met in a community center and moved from classroom to darkroom. When digital photography became…

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Sex And The Super Bowl

Among those coming for the festivities will be some whose reason for travel is not for their own pleasure but for the amusement of others. These are the young girls and boys who have been caught in the web of sex trafficking. Their presence among the fans and partygoers may not be obvious; in fact,…

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