The panel created and funded by the state legislature has two years to find ways to decrease the large number of troubled kids who run away from foster care and treatment centers
Social Services
Posted inSocial Services
Most young teens in Colorado’s foster care system don’t know about birth control, new study finds
About 65% of eighth and ninth graders interviewed in the Denver area said they were not educated about birth control
Posted inSocial Services
The sudden suspension of a Colorado prison-work program has thrown employers into disarray
The Take Two program was paused following an inmate escape earlier this year. Employers, already battling a tight labor market, say they were given no time to plan for the loss of labor.
Posted inHousing
Denver business leaders want immediate answers to homelessness as downtown struggles to rebound
Business owners and homeless advocates have the same goal: Get people off the streets. It comes with a big price tag.
Posted inSocial Services
What happens when a Colorado hospital releases a patient without a home? A new center aims to fill the gap.
A Colorado Coalition for the Homeless recuperative care center is set to open this fall, attempting to stop the revolving emergency room door.
Posted inPolitics and Government
Denver office of social equity blasted by city auditor for lack of strategy, progress after 2 years of work
Two years after it was launched, the Mayor’s Office of Social Equity and Innovation still doesn’t have a cohesive strategy for its initiatives or for assessing progress toward increasing equity, and eliminating racial and social injustice citywide, the city auditor says. The office also failed to disclose pertinent contract information before the audit process ended, […]
Posted inNews, Social Services
Former foster kids started a new Colorado nonprofit to help young people. TikTok is taking it nationwide.
One young woman who aged out of foster care was about to have her phone service cut off for not paying the bill. A teenage boy living in a homeless shelter while waiting for a foster placement reached out because he was lonely and hungry. And a mother who was fighting to get her children […]
Posted inEconomy, Equity, Growth, Health, News, Social Services
Health disparities drive Ute Mountain Ute plan for new grocery store, workforce center
In Towaoc, capital of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, there are about 347 households and no place within 15 miles to shop for fresh, healthy food. That’s a significant barrier to improving health in a community where rates of obesity and diabetes are nearly three times higher than the rest of Colorado. An ambitious plan […]
Posted inColoradans, Health, News, Social Services
The number of LGBTQ foster kids is on the rise, but does Colorado have enough accepting homes?
Diamond Kobylinski spent almost his entire childhood in foster homes, from age 2 to 17. The worst, though, was when one set of foster parents changed their mind about adopting him after Kobylinski blurted out during an argument that he was gay. It was the first time Kobylinski had ever said the words out loud. […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News, Politics and Government, Social Services
A rare conviction and tearful Capitol testimony are intensifying pressure to reform Colorado’s guardianship system
It was a call about an unpaid bill from her mother’s doctor that led Barb Dowski to begin unraveling the deception. Dowski tried to question her mother’s court-appointed conservator, who was in charge of paying those medical bills and the rest of Barbara Moore’s finances, but got no answers. So she headed down a paper […]