Meet the Full-Service Social Media Secretary for Prisoners

One in six boys in the United States has experienced sexual abuse before turning 18. With few recovery options in real life, more of them are going online for support.

Assertive community treatment teams working through outreach-centered programs in Maricopa County have become an industry standard for treating those with persistent and severe mental illnesses who have recently been incarcerated. They provide a long-term approach, aiming to halt a cycle of incarceration and hospitalization by focusing on underlying issues such as what caused the police interaction and incarceration.

Across the United States, tribal lands have the lowest access to internet, an issue that restricts opportunity and education in those areas. In New Mexico, several small tribes have partnered to lay fiber-optic cables that connect the libraries, which serve as primary sources of internet connection, to faster, cheaper internet.

Readers on the BBC website can now find out more about select stories through “Appy Helper,” a module that provides background about an ongoing, complex story. The module works through both a chat-style interface that readers navigate via prompts or a more linear timeline display.

Frustrated by a tight labor market, two locally owned Grand Rapids employers discovered the virtues – economic, not just moral – of hiring formerly incarcerated people, whose gratitude for an opportunity translated into excellent performance and less risk of adding to rapid turnover. The employers helped guarantee success by paying for support services that made post-prison transitions easier. The employers then talked hundreds of other local employers into doing the same. Besides providing a business advantage, the program changes lives and is evidently contributing to much lower rates of recidivism.

New Hampshire's Rockinham County gives some people with extensive drug and criminal histories an offramp from the criminal legal system, in the form of housing at Cross Roads House and a drug court to emphasize treatment over punishment. But, while other cities in the state meet such needs with multiple programs, the second-most populous county in the state has a severe shortage of supportive housing and services. Such services can make the difference between prison and success, and even between life and death in a place with high rates of overdose deaths.

A New York-based nonprofit called Students for a Free Tibet is training Tibetans in "how to stage nonviolent protests." This effort, in conjunction with other Tibetan NGOs, has helped activists in Dharamsala, India to become "more organized, media savvy and technologically sophisticated," which in turn has increased the number of people who have come together to participate in the nonviolent protests.

Athletes are mobilizing young voters and raising awareness about the perils of climate change. The athletes have been able to use their large social media platforms and following to educate people, urge them to act, and reach out to elected officials through a concerted effort by nonprofit Protect Our Winters (POW).

Chicago Connected is a $50 million four-year program that has already provided high-speed broadband to over 40,000 households in need, representing around 64,000 Chicago public school students, and plans to expand. On-the-ground community outreach in multiple languages was key to connecting residents to the program quickly, which was needed as school went virtual due to COVID-19. The public schools helped identify eligible low-income students whose parents were then contacted by outreach workers.

A data analyst who is a Microsoft-certified trainer uploads videos on social media teaching digital technology skills in the Yorùbá language. The videos are free to watch and break the language barrier that arises with most English-only tech information available online.