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Create A New Collection

Collections are versatile, powerful and simple to create. From a customized course reader to an action-guide for an upcoming service-learning trip, collections illuminate themes, guide inquiry, and provide context for how people around the worls are responding to social challenges.

  • Name and describe your collection

  • Add Stories

  • Add external links at any time

  • Add to your collection over time and share!

1. Name your collection

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2. Add Stories

Add stories to your collection from your list of Favorites below, or add stories directly to a collection from Search or Discovery. Anytime you see the collection icon you can add a story. Just click the icon and follow the instructions on your screen.

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Solutions Story Tracker®

Welcome to a curated database of rigorous reporting on responses to social problems.

15,700 stories produced by 8,900 journalists and 2,000 news outlets from 89 countries. The stories cover responses in 192 countries, in 17 languages. This resource is made possible because of a growing movement of journalists who use solutions journalism to illuminate both problems and evidence-based responses to them.

Learn more about the Solutions Story Tracker.


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There are 366 results  for your search.  View and Refine Your Search Terms

  • Actor's Gang: How Tim Robbins has cut reoffending rates

    Kate Bissell
    2017-11-30 16:01:32 UTC
    0

    March 14, 2016 |

    BBC |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Los Angeles, California

    For many offenders, prison can be a tense, divisive, and anger-inducing environment, fueling the negative influences that landed them there in the first place and leading to high recidivism rates. Actor Tim Robbins - who once famously portrayed a prisoner himself - started a program called The Actors Gang to bring theater to inmates as an outlet for emotion and expression, breaking down barriers between former gang members and helping individuals to process their troubles.

    Read More

    • 3035

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  • The San Francisco Jail That Started a School

    Rob Waters
    2016-07-11 13:43:00 UTC
    0

    March 10, 2016 |

    Bright Magazine |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, San Francisco, California

    Five Keys Charter School, established in 2003, works in various California prisons to provide education and job training to inmates. Since its founding, Five Keys has awarded 684 high school diplomas to inmates in custody and 712 more to people who completed their coursework at a network of community sites scattered around San Francisco and Los Angeles.

    Read More

    • 1561

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  • Youth Program Points To Ways D.C. Can Be ‘Far More Creative' Against Crime

    Matthew S. Schwartz
    2017-04-12 21:33:50 UTC
    0

    February 25, 2016 |

    American University Radio (WAMU) |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Fort Meade, Maryland

    Paying at-risk people to stay out of trouble is the most controversial part of a new D.C. crime bill that also proposes counseling and other services to prevent repeat offenses. But a similar program is already in use in D.C., with the blessing of the District’s top prosecutor, giving nonviolent juvenile offenders a second chance. (2nd of a 3 part series)

    Read More

    • 2249

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  • An unprecedented experiment in mass forgiveness

    Rob Kuznia
    2016-02-15 06:05:44 UTC
    0

    February 08, 2016 |

    The Washington Post |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, California

    In California, once a national innovator in draconian policies to get tough on crime, voters and lawmakers are now innovating in the opposite direction, adopting laws that have released tens of thousands of inmates and are preventing even more from going to prison in the first place.

    Read More

    • 1309

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  • The Unlikely Rise of Restorative Justice in a Conservative Upstate New York County

    Mark Obbie
    2018-01-18 23:50:58 UTC
    0

    December 29, 2015 |

    Slate |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Batavia, New York

    In a conservative upstate town in New York, an early advocate of what is now known as restorative justice pioneered the idea of finding alternatives to incarceration that address root causes of crimes and offer victims larger roles in the process. He did this by engaging different people across law enforcement, the community and social services. That built broad support, but the programs have struggled to maintain these innovations or make them permanent after the departure of the visionary founder.

    Read More

    • 3211

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  • Police Officers, Former Inmates Break Bread, Build Bridges

    Brandis Friedman
    2018-07-04 23:39:24 UTC
    0

    December 22, 2015 |

    WTTW-PBS |

    Broadcast TV News |

    3-5 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, Chicago, Illinois

    At monthly lunch meetings, former inmates get together with Chicago Police officers to make connections outside of law enforcement situations and try to understand one another better. The Building Bridges, Building Connections initiative fosters honest dialogue through facilitated discussions that touch on all kinds of topics based in individuals' personal experiences. It's not an easy path, but it has continued for four years and many participants say they wish the meetings lasted longer.

    Read More

    • 4340

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  • Murder in the Magic City: The Crime Fighters

    Nick Patterson
    2016-02-05 17:10:08 UTC
    0

    December 17, 2015 |

    Weld for Birgmingham |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Boston, Massachusetts

    Authorities have found a strategy to curb the homicide rate, The Violence Reduction Initiative, which has been scaled in other cities. This initiative calls in likely offenders and has them meet with the police face-to-face.

    Read More

    • 1238

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  • How an Unusual Team Helps Extricate Bronx Residents From NYC's Justice System

    Hélène Barthélemy
    2015-11-28 01:36:48 UTC
    0

    November 09, 2015 |

    The Nation (New York) |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, New York, New York

    A misdemeanor for a poor person can mean denial of employment, housing, etc., removing any opportunities for change. A public defender's office in the Bronx is trying to stop this downward spiral by offering ex-offenders comprehensive and dedicated help.

    Read More

    • 1023

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  • Prison Without Punishment

    Maurice Chammah
    2015-11-12 16:37:47 UTC
    1

    September 25, 2015 |

    The Marshall Project |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, New York, New York

    Both incarceration and crime rates are low is Western Europe where the focus in prison is on rehabilitating prisoners so they can return to society. American leaders visited a prison in Germany to consider implementing certain aspects in the United States.

    Read More

    • 950

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  • A New Way of Fighting Crime—and Helping Victims—on the Violent Streets of Los Angeles

    Mark Obbie
    2018-01-19 21:36:14 UTC
    2

    September 11, 2015 |

    Slate |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Los Angeles, California

    Four community groups in the Los Angeles area work to address the root causes of what draws young people into gangs with a mix of approaches to help people leave the gang life, including education and job services, counseling, addiction services, and tattoo removal. Some also focus on helping victims since so many gang members start out life as victims themselves and this feeds into a cycle of violence. All of them focus on creating community and belonging, which is why so many young people join gangs in the first place.

    Read More

    • 3216

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Please sign in via My Profile before submitting a story. This will allow you to view the status of your submission and get notified if the story is added to the Solutions Story Tracker®.
Filter your search by the language of the story. As the Solutions Story Tracker grows, we are working to include more stories in more languages. Your story submissions can help! Submit stories here.
These factors identify the ways communities overcome the big challenges and help you see the insights. Learn more about the Success Factors here.

Solutions Journalism Around the World

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Solutions In Focus

Discover curated content about themes that matter to you, exclusively from the Solutions Story Tracker. Explore collections, resources and more.

  • Climate Solutions

  • Advancing Democracy

  • Youth Mental Health


Go to All Solutions in Focus

More Options

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    Video Tutorials

    Learn how to find what you need in the Solutions Story Tracker in español and in français.

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    Submission Guidelines

    This database is powered by user submissions. Submit a story.

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    Custom Story Alerts

    Get notified when new stories match your interests by setting up custom story alerts in My Profile.

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Solutions Story Tracker® FAQ

  • Solutions journalism…
    • Describes a response to a problem and how it works.
    • Seeks to draw out insights that explain success or failure.
    • Presents the available evidence about the effectiveness of a response.
    • Explains the shortcomings or limitations of the response.
    Learn more.
  • The Solutions Story Tracker® is a curated, searchable database of solutions journalism stories — rigorous reporting about responses to social problems. We vet and tag every story in the Story Tracker, which offers an inspiring and useful collection of the thousands of ways people are working to solve problems around the world.

  • You can learn more about how we source, vet, and tag stories here, as well as how we share them. We also have video tutorials in Spanish and French that show how to use the Solutions Story Tracker to find what you need.

  • Story collections are curated by our staff or other partners to explore a theme, pattern, or trend via selected solutions stories and external resources. Some story collections focus on an in-depth exploration of a topic with solutions journalism; others highlight journalists and how they report on topics. Certain story collections include discussion questions and notes, so that educators and community discussion leaders can lead learners to fully engage with the stories.

  • The Solutions Story Tracker® is powered by user submissions. We encourage submissions from journalists, as well as from anyone who has an eye for solutions journalism. Click here to submit. (Why submit? So many reasons!)

  • You can submit a story directly on the Solutions Story Tracker®. You will be prompted to register or log into the Solutions Journalism Network website, if you are already logged in. (It is free to register!) Logging in allows you to track the status of your submissions under My Profile, as well as save your favorite stories, create story collections and story alerts, and access other helpful features of our website.

  • After you submit a story to us and assign it a topic, it is sent to one of our Solutions Story Tracker team members. Our team member evaluates the story for the four qualities of solutions journalism, and on the basics: The story must come from a news outlet and have a date and a byline. If the story meets our criteria, our team tags it accordingly and adds it to the database. If the story falls short of the mark, our team will include the reason why. We include stories in the Story Tracker that meet our standards of solutions journalism. Inclusion does not mean we support the initiatives, policies, organizations or approaches featured in those stories.

    Discover common reasons why a story may miss the mark for inclusion in the Solutions Story Tracker®.

    Learn more about the history of the database.

  • Solutions Journalism Network features these stories in the searchable database making them publicly accessible to anyone who wants to search for rigorous reporting on solutions to social problems. Any story that is added has the potential to make more impact than its original purpose. Added stories are used in journalism trainings, school curricula, research projects, and independent analysis on issue area trends. This now includes artificial intelligence tools, which are applied for educational value to find stories and support story vetting, as well as to extract insights from the stories. SJN has digital products and newsletters that give new life and exposure to the stories meeting people where they are at. Story data also is used to develop innovative tools to reach the general public with solutions journalism as well as some specific research projects requested by researchers. If you have any questions or concerns about our use of story data or added stories, please contact Lita Tirak.

  • News outlets determine whether all users can access their stories — and some limit the number of stories that anyone can view, or require a subscription. The majority of stories in the database can be accessed for free.

  • We work with journalists, academic researchers and others who feel that our database will support their research. We are especially interested in research that seeks to develop new insights about solutions journalism and its spread and its impact on social problems. Please complete all sections of the Data Request Form, and we will contact you to discuss your request in greater detail.

  • We do not fact-check the stories in the Solutions Story Tracker®. We do ensure that each story comes from a credible news source that has its own editorial infrastructure.

  • We worked with Tara Pixley and Jovelle Tamayo of the Authority Collective, who developed a guide for using equitable visuals. We follow this guide when choosing images for our website.

  • We welcome your feedback and additional questions. Please use this form to get in touch.

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