Children & Youth Briefly

CNN story reports tsunami horror for disabled children

Screaming with fear, disabled children at a shelter in Galle, Sri Lanka, lay helplessly in their beds as seawater surged around them. The tsunami roared in on the day after Christmas. Some of the desperate children gripped the rafters as the water rose inside the one-story Sambodhi shelter. Others floated away on mattresses to their deaths, according to witnesses. Just 41 of the 102 residents of the home survived, according to the caretaker. Read the CNN report online.

oneminutesJr. competition 2005 invites video submissions

The oneminutesJr. competition 2005 will take place in Amsterdam at the end of November. The competition is linked to the yearly international oneminutes festival of the Sandberg Institute held in The Netherlands every November. Youth between 12 and 20 years old living in Europe or Central Asia are invited to submit a oneminute before September 15, 2005. The categories this year are the open category, "the best of the world jr.: any topic, theme or genre" and the thematic category, "inside-out: everybody sometimes belongs, sometimes is being left out. This can be a choice or against your will. Whether you are 'in' or 'out', your position defines your role in society. Tell us your experience or opinion." A jury will select their favorites that will be shown during the festival. Awards will be given to the most outstanding submissions. More information.

Improving Employment Outcomes for Youth with Disabilities: Learning from the Youth Transition Process Demonstration Innovations

The Disability Research Institute's Youth Transition Process Demonstration (YTPD), a Social Security Administration (SSA) sponsored demonstration project designed to improve employment outcomes for youth with disabilities, developed innovative approaches for improving the transition from school to work, primarily by integrating systems and linking services, for youth who receive or may eventually receive Social Security benefits due to disability. Researchers in this project worked closely with each of the seven YTPD sites to develop a rigorous research design, assist the sites in developing their evaluation plans, and conduct cross-site analyses. The final project report describes the technical assistance provided to the Youth Transition Demonstration (YTD) sites and recommendations regarding the feasibility of randomized assignment in the evaluation of the impact of approaches being utilized within and across sites to improve employment outcomes for youth with disabilities. Download the report in Word.

SNEInfoDesk database on European programs covering special education

The aim of this multilingual database is to provide in a simple way, key information on the support - funding and information - available within European Programs that applies to the field of special needs education.

SNEInfoDesk is mainly addressed to people with special educational needs, professionals and organizations from the SNE field, with particular emphasis upon the "un-initiated" - potential participants who have never been involved in European programs or are simply not aware of the existence of such possibilities at the European level. For more information, visit SNEInfoDesk.

U.S. Medical Research on Captive Populations Included Disabled Children

In recent years, thousands of documents on government sponsored medical research in the 20th century on captive populations, including disabled children in institutions, have become declassified and available to the public through the U.S. Freedom of Information Act .

Stories broadcast on CBS 60 Minutes in February 2005  utilized this material to demonstrate that thousands of disabled children had been utilized in radiation experiments during the 1950s and early 1960s. The documents reflect a time when, as one researcher described it, "Children in orphanages, children in homes of the mentally retarded, these [were] all good populations from the sense of medical research becuase you [had] an easily accessible group of people living in controlled circumstances, and you [could] monitor them."

This was a CBS feature story on children with disabilities utilized in radiation experiments, "A Dark Chapter in Medical History," February 9, 2005. This story was also featured in a Justice For All news item.

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