In theory, never leaving home during the coronavirus pandemic is the most effective means of prevention. It reduces your chance of infection and quickly contains the disease’s spread. A recent study in Science found, for example, that this kind of distancing is even better than widespread travel bans or restrictions.

In practice, however, it’s not always possible to hole up. Your circumstances may not afford you the luxury of working from home or avoiding public transit. And sometimes life happens and you just need to get on a plane.

The good news is that tamping down the coronavirus isn’t an all-or-nothing game. There are still many ways you can practice responsible social distancing even when you have to be out and about in the world. In addition to the basics—don’t touch your face, and wash your hands often with soap and water for 20 seconds—click HERE for to read the article by Tanya Basu and Karen Hao that shares some other tips, collected from half a dozen experts, to follow in different areas of your life.

​Source: MIT Technology Review

The coronavirus is raising a lot of questions for parents, like what does it mean to work from home while parenting young children? Hear from Anya Kamenetz and Cory Turner - education reporters by day and parents by night (and day). In recent weeks, their two worlds have collided, with parents and educators equally concerned about the spread of COVID-19. So here's a quick rundown of some of the great questions they've heard from listeners and readers and the answers they've been able to explore in their reporting. Click HERE to read the article or have a 14-minute listen below.

Source: NPR

​A snowfall in northern Ohio inspired a cancer patient's daughter to write a message to her mom in the fresh snow outside her hospital room.

Michele Schambach, 65, arrived at the Cleveland Clinic from Guatemala on Wednesday hoping for more advanced treatment for her aggressive brain cancer. This was her second time in the United States for treatment, after coming to the non-profit hospital for care in October.

Her daughter, Marie Schambach, a physician in Guatemala, told CNN she had never seen snow before, but decided that she could use it to lift her mom's spirits. Click HERE to read the full story via CNN.

The Trevor Project reports that nearly 50% of young transgender people have seriously thought about taking their own lives, and 25% report having made a suicide attempt. The National Discrimination Survey puts this number at 40%.
In the Transgender Discrimination Survey, a staggering 41% of respondents reported attempting suicide compared to 1.6% of the general population, with rates rising for those who lost a job due to bias (55%), were harassed/bullied in school (51%), had a low household income, or were the victim of physical assault (61%) or sexual assault (64%).

When you consider the difficulties transgender youth go through during puberty and early adulthood these statistics, while gut-wrenching, really aren’t surprising. A recent blog post on Transgender Mental Health addressed both of these crucial developmental stages:

• Puberty: particularly hard age, since the body begins to change and adapt gender specific features (breasts, changes in genitals, menses, etc).
• Transgender individuals reported “I was disgusted by (hair, breasts, etc.)"
• Early Adulthood: with emotional and financial independence some people feel free to begin to address transgender issues at this age and look into transitioning. However, some are not as free to do so, due to family and other obligations, or lack of information and access to services.

Add to this, the many societal challenges summarized by Advocates for Youth: deliberately incorrect and disrespectful use of names and pronoun; lack of access to appropriate restroom facilities; lack of access to appropriate locker room facilities; rigid dress codes that differ for males and female; confidentiality issues; and lack of role models and accurate information.

What is abundantly clear is that the transgender community continually faces problems that gender-conforming individuals can only imagine. Social ostracism, physical assault, and verbal harassment are just the beginning. Further, the education system is not given the proper tools in order to help these individuals feel safe and secure.
Something clearly must be done... Click HERE to read to full article by author Kerry Martin.

A collaboration between Hope For The Day and Dark Matter Coffee, Sip of Hope is the world’s first coffee shop where 100% of the proceeds support proactive suicide prevention and mental health education. Sip of Hope is the perfect space for breaking the silence around suicide and raising the visibility of mental health resources in our community.

"When Jack and I head to Chicago next month, we are definitely stopping in for a sip to support. In love with the concept of a place for having coffee and conversation for the cause. Suicide prevention and mental health education are so very important." -Allie

There can only be one winner emerging from this year’s Super Bowl LIV showdown between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs, but the biggest losers will be the hundreds of young girls and boys--some as young as 9 years old—who will be bought and sold for sex during the course of the big game.

It’s common to refer to this evil practice, which has become the fastest growing business in organized crime and the second most-lucrative commodity traded illegally after drugs and guns as child sex trafficking, but what we’re really talking about is rape.

Adults purchase children for sex at least 2.5 million times a year in the United States.
It’s not just young girls who are vulnerable to these predators, either...