Archive

In its recent Biennial Performance Audit of the Baltimore City Health Department, the city’s Department of Audits noted several of the health department’s successes, including its Naloxone program, which reversed at least 1,439 overdoses in 2016 and 2017 alone. The audit also reported several failures to meet expectations, recommending that the department increase staffing levels […]

Pax Christi International, the global Catholic peace movement whose focus is “to transform a world shaken by violence, terrorism, deepening inequalities, and global insecurity” has named the No Boundaries Coalition, an OSI-Baltimore grantee, the recipient of its 2018 Peace Award.  No Boundaries, a community advocacy organization that played a key role in ensuring that the Consent Decree was […]

On Wednesday, the Baltimore City Youth Fund announced its year-one grant awardees and among the recipients are several OSI-Baltimore grantees and organizations founded by OSI Community Fellows. Among the awardees was Afrikan Youth Alchemy Inc. (founded by 2009 Fellow Tre Subira), Baltimore Youth Arts (founded by 2016 Fellow Gianna Rodriguez), Intersection of Change (a part of […]

Baltimore Business Journal just announced its “40 Under 40” list for 2018 and among the recipients are 2016 OSI Community Fellow Gianna Rodriguez and Mark Procopio, CEO of OSI grantee FreeState Justice. As part of Fellowship, Rodriguez expanded her program, Baltimore Youth Arts, a job readiness program for youth who have contact with the justice […]

Join Open Society Institute-Baltimore for the second of three special events marking our 20th Anniversary. The centerpiece of the event will be a timely conversation on “Making Sure Every Person Counts: The Census, Advocacy, and Civic Participation” with two of the country’s foremost experts on these subjects: Barbara Mikulski was a US Senator representing Maryland for 30 years, from 1987 to […]

Positive Schools Center (PSC) of the University of Maryland School of Social Work, an initiative funded by a multi-year grant from Open Society Institute, recently created a series of training videos that they will use during the upcoming school year. The videos, which focus on leadership, positive relationships, teaching and learning, health and safety and school […]

PARCC test results released today show that Baltimore City Schools had the region’s biggest increases, even as suspension rates have plummeted. “These results debunk the myth that suspension reductions result in chaotic schools in which children can’t learn,” says Karen Webber, director of OSI-Baltimore’s Education and Youth Development program, which has made working with Baltimore City […]

Last week, 2016 OSI Community Fellow, Melissa Badeker and her program, Baltimore Teacher Supply Swap was featured on WMAR.  This time of year is especially busy for Badeker, who started the program with another fellow teacher as a way to collect unused school supplies from educators who no longer needed the materials and get them […]

As part of the Consent Decree that Baltimore City and the Department of Justice entered into as the result of an investigation into the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) after the death of Freddie Gray in police custody, the first set of the BPD’s revised policies relating to stops, searches, and arrests are available for public […]

This week Baltimore City Public Schools unveiled five newly-renovated school buildings under the 21st Century Schools program. With this initiative, the ACLU of Maryland, with help from OSI planning and implementation grants, worked tirelessly for years – along with Baltimore Education Coalition (another OSI-Baltimore grantee), BUILD, Strong City Baltimore and many other groups – advocating […]