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Federal Resources
Bright Idea: A Free Teen Clinic Reduces Barriers to Health Care
This article from the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth highlights the work of Tulane’s Drop-In Clinic, which provides free medical care to teens in New Orleans. It shares some of the best practices that have helped the clinic successfully reduce barriers and connect youth to care.
Don't Call Them Dropouts
A report from America’s Promise Alliance encourages readers to think differently about youth who have left school, suggesting a change in terminology, from “dropouts” to “nongraduates” or students who have had “interrupted enrollment.” As this article explains, youth voices are featured prominently in the report, which also highlights factors that influence students to leave school and the supports that can help them to return to and remain in school.
Five Ways to Improve Youth Health
This slideshow presents tips for youth-serving organizations on how they can improve the health of the at-risk youth they work with. Ideas include partnering with local farms to receive fresh vegetables and offering classes for physical and mental health.
Five Key Ways the Affordable Care Act Affects Young People
This blog post from the National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth links to multiple resources that can help youth-serving programs understand how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) affects youth, including homeless and runaway youth. The post also provides some of the highlights from a recent webinar that discussed what youth and youth workers need to know about the ACA.
Online Sexual Health Resources
The Department of Health and Human Services’ National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth released this list of recommended resources on sexually transmitted diseases, including information geared specifically to teens and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning youth.
Q&A: Amy Lin of Young Invincibles on Helping Young People Find Health Insurance
This interview features Amy Lin of the health advocacy group Young Invincibles discussing her organization’s work to encourage young people to sign up for health insurance through the Health Insurance Marketplace. Amy also discusses the challenges that young people, including those who are homeless or teen parents, face in accessing healthcare and how youth-serving professionals can help them overcome these obstacles.
Resource Roundup: Helping Youth and Families Get Affordable Care Act Health Coverage
NCFY has compiled a list of resources from federal agencies and nonprofit organizations that can help professionals guide youth and families in obtaining affordable health care through Medicaid or the Health Insurance Marketplace.
Train Juvenile Justice Staff to Educate Youth on Sexual Health
Without other trusted adults to guide them, young men in juvenile justice facilities may turn to employees for information about sexual health, a role that these individuals may not be trained to fulfill. To answer this need, the Washington State Department of Health, through the State Personal Responsibility Education Program, provided training to juvenile justice staff to deliver evidence-based sexual health curricula to youth.
What Makes Homeless Youth More Likely to Get STIs? More Likely to Get Tested?
This article from the National Clearinghouse on Families and Youth provides an overview of recent research on the factors that influence sexually transmitted (STI) infection rates among homeless youth. The article also presents the factors that influence the likelihood these youth will get tested and offers suggestions for potentially effective prevention and intervention efforts to reduce risky sexual behaviors and promote STI testing.
Q&A: How to Help Homeless Youth Quit Smoking
This Q&A with Joan Tucker, the senior behavioral scientist and professor at Pardee RAND Graduate School in Santa Monica, California, focuses on Dr. Tucker’s work on smoking among homeless youth and her recommendations for what tailored cessation programs might look like.
5 Tips for Providing Trauma-Informed Sex Education
This article highlights the work of two researchers who are pioneering changes in sex education that bridge the gap between sex education and trauma-informed care by better understanding how sex education could be more sensitive to students’ traumatic experiences. This article also offers tips, based on this research, for implementing a trauma informed approach to sex education.
Guidance: Education Department Reiterates — Title I Funding Can Be Used to Serve Homeless Students
This article explains the guidance provided in a recent “Dear Colleague” letter (PDF, 4 pages) issued by the Department of Education which explains how school districts can use Title I funds to help children and youth experiencing homelessness. Some examples of ways districts can use the funds are to transport homeless students to and from school, pay the salaries of staff who work with homeless youth, and to generally meet the needs of these students.
Resource: Apps Help Prevent Teen Pregnancy and Promote Youth Sexual Health
This slideshow highlights six free apps that can help youth avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections.
Share with Youth: Apps Promote Youth Sexual Health
This slideshow features free apps that can help youth avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections. It includes a brief description of each app and a link to where it can be downloaded.
Resource: How Does Talking to Extended Family Influence Teens' Decisions About Sex?
This article highlights a recent study which examined why teens talk with extended family members about sex and what they discuss. The results indicate that almost 60% of teens in the study talked with extended family members about sex, and youth who said they talked exclusively to extended family members about sex were more than twice as likely to have had sex.
Share with Youth: Hitting the Open Road After High School
Co-written by teens for teens, this resource can help youth with disabilities (PDF, 16 pages) think about their options for life after high school. It provides information on post-graduation options and guides students in making choices that are right for them, finding activities that can help them get ready now, and accessing supportive services.
Resource: Personal Competencies for College & Career Success
This guide describes strategies postsecondary professionals can use to assist all students, including those with disabilities, to develop personal competencies that will increase their chances of success.
Civil Rights Guidance to K-12 Schools on Single-Sex Classes
Guidance from OCR advises schools on how to offer single-sex classes (PDF, 36 pages) while complying with Title IX. Presented in a question-and-answer format, the guidance addresses common scenarios that schools may face when designing single-sex programs.
Report: Delivering Justice
This report (PDF, 44 pages) describes OCR’s efforts during the last year to protect students’ civil rights and increase educational equity. The report includes examples of OCR’s enforcement activities, highlights of notable cases, and the guidance documents OCR released in 2015.
Resource: Combatting Discrimination Against AANHPI and MASSA Students
This policy fact sheet (PDF, 1 page) supports educators and community leaders as they work to protect all students, including Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) and Muslim, Arab, Sikh, and South Asian (MASSA) students, from discrimination and to create safe and supportive learning environments.
Resource: Dear Colleague Letter on Gender Equity in Career and Technical Education
This Dear Colleague Letter (PDF, 17 pages) emphasizes that students, regardless of their sex, must have equal access to the range of career and technical programs offered. It also provides examples of how schools could fail to comply with these requirement and the actions they could take to remedy any violations.
Resource: Civil Rights of Students with ADHD
This guidance (PDF, 42 pages) clarifies the obligation of schools to provide students with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with equal educational opportunity under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.
Resource: Protecting Students from Religious Discrimination
This website features federal resources regarding religious discrimination, as well as policy guidance and examples of OCR case resolutions involving religious discrimination claims.
Report: Securing Equal Educational Opportunity
This annual report (PDF, 44 pages) summarizes OCR’s compliance and enforcement activities in FY 2016. OCR received a record 16,270 complaint filings, resolved 8,625 cases, and initiated 13 proactive compliance reviews.
Resource: Parent and Educator Resource Guide to Section 504 in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools
This resource guide (PDF, 52 pages) summarizes key requirements of Section 504, the federal law that provides a broad spectrum of protections for students against discrimination on the basis of disability, and explains how Section 504 applies in various situations within public elementary and secondary schools. This guide can help members of the school community better understand Section 504 and assist parents of students with disabilities in ensuring their children secure all the services they are entitled to receive.