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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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  • “We Are Not Lost Causes”

    Mark Obbie
    2020-05-19 14:41:14 UTC
    0

    March 05, 2020 |

    Longreads |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Rochester, New York

    In Rochester, NY, the Center for Teen Empowerment, a nonprofit that trains youth in community organizing, personal development, and anti-violence, is working to bring kids off the street and into safety. The program, which started in Boston, is centered on four ideas: jobs (paying the youth hired as organizers), teamwork, agency (letting them build their own activist agendas), and peer influence. While hard to evaluate because of its situational, qualitative nature, city officials, including law enforcement, point to the program as a factor in the decrease in violence across the city.

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    • 10067

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  • This Man Says His Anti-violence Plan Would Save 12,000 Lives

    Mark Obbie
    2019-09-12 03:17:43 UTC
    0

    September 11, 2019 |

    The Atlantic |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Buffalo, New York

    With support for a New York-based grant program, Buffalo has been trying various evidence-based approaches to decrease violence, especially gun violence, in the city. The grant program, Gun Involved Violence Elimination, or GIVE, provides funding for police departments to adopt strategies like hot-spot policing, deterring those most at-risk, or street outreach to break the cycle of violence. While such strategies are linked to success, the process of implementing them, gaining support and trust from the community, and waiting for long-term change has proven challenging.

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    • 7964

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  • The Wonk's Guide to What Works, and What Doesn't, When Policing Violent Crime

    Mark Obbie
    2017-07-02 22:24:45 UTC
    0

    August 11, 2016 |

    The Trace |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States

    While policing initiatives have previously been driven by intuitive responses to trends in violent crime, the Centre for Evidence-Based Crime Policy at George Mason University has developed a new strategy for identifying the effectiveness of policing practices. With a focus on empirical evidence-based approaches to crime prevention, the Centre has identified large-scale initiatives that work.

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    • 2564

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  • In Search of the Felon-Friendly Workplace

    Mark Obbie
    2016-06-27 18:28:30 UTC
    0

    June 25, 2016 |

    The New York Times |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, St. Louis, Missouri

    One of the hardest parts of being in prison is not knowing what to do when you get out. By pitching ex-cons as good for business, the Eastern District of Missouri’s prison-to-work program has become a model for inmate re-entry nationwide.

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    • 1447

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  • Can a new victims advocacy movement break cycles of violence?

    Mark Obbie
    2016-01-14 15:04:33 UTC
    1

    January 13, 2016 |

    Al Jazeera |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Los Angeles, California

    A growing number of organizations—rallying around victim advocacy—are calling for shorter sentences for offenders and better counseling for victims across the United States.

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    • 1149

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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.

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    • 3211

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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.

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    • 3216

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  • Can Prisons Reduce Recidivism by Inviting Victims of Crime to Talk to Prisoners? 

    Mark Obbie
    2018-06-29 00:01:48 UTC
    0

    July 19, 2015 |

    Slate |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Houston, Texas

    A Houston man whose sister was murdered created a way to help his own pain and possibly foster more empathy and understanding among inmates. The restorative justice program, Bridges to Life, has grown to hundreds of volunteers throughout Texas, which includes crime victims who tell their stories and work with inmates to impress upon them the harm that their actions can inflict on others. The prisoners are encouraged to open up about their own lives with the idea that both groups will find healing.

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    • 4292

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  • A Mother Forgives the Man Who Raped and Killed Her Daughter

    Mark Obbie
    2021-03-17 22:28:04 UTC
    0

    June 30, 2015 |

    Slate |

    Multi-Media |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Houston, Texas

    Restorative justice emphasizes accountability and making amends by facilitating meetings between people who committed a crime and those who were hurt by that crime. Victims can get their questions answered and express to the offender how their lives were impacted and the offender apologizes and presents specific ways they will make amends, such as community service or drug treatment. The method improves recidivism rates and gives victims a small sense of control. One participant, Linda White, was inspired to become a vocal and active advocate of the approach after speaking with a man who killed her daughter.

    Read More

    • 12714

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  • Why Victims Face the Criminals Who Hurt Them

    Mark Obbie
    2020-08-09 10:07:02 UTC
    0

    December 20, 2010 |

    Pacific Standard |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Texas

    The Victim-Offender Mediation/Dialogue program in Texas connects victims with those who harmed them to initiate a healing process founded on the premise of restorative justice. This state-run mediation program helps victims talk to "the criminal who brought pain to them," and requires that the victim request the meeting. Although it has been slow to gain both notoriety in Texas and popularity across the U.S., positive effects have been documented for those who have accessed and participated in the service.

    Read More

    • 10855

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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

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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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