NCR Today

Here's an inonvative idea for social service delivery: "We really think about schools as being the center of the community where everything comes together," said Josefina Alvarado-Mena, executive director of Safe Passages, a nonprofit organization in Oakland, Calif.Alameda County youth.

"The old paradigm was that families had to go to multiple services, often at multiple locations," Alvarado-Mena said. "Many got lost in transit or lost in translation."

By contrast, Safe Passages uses schools as conduits to bring social services to youth and their families. Focusing on poor and underperforming youth in middle school and early childhood, the organization offers academic support, physical and mental health services, violence prevention classes, and family therapy. Full-time site coordinators at each participating school help Safe Passages reach the most vulnerable students, including undocumented immigrants and young people with violent backgrounds and unstable families.

The U.S. bishops waded into the debate over health care reform with a letter to congressional leaders pointing the four criteria that governs the bishops’ thinking on health care and giving special attention to two of these points.

The four governing criteria are: respect for human life and dignity, access for all, pluralism and equitable costs. The two that need special attention, according to the letter signed by Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., are: respect for human life and access.

Thus begins the story by Kay Campbell of Religion News Service about a Communion on the moon: The lunar communion service.