The Chelsea Foyer at the Christopher at Five Years: Lessons in Developing Stable Housing and Self-Sufficiency For Homeless Youth and Youth Exiting Foster Care

The Chelsea Foyer at the Christopher is a transitional housing program for youth aging out of foster care and youth who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. Launched in 2004 as partnership between Common Ground Community and Good Shepherd Services, the Chelsea Foyer at the Christopher has served 165 young people between the ages of 18-25, providing up to two years of transitional housing in conjunction with a rigorous, developmentally-appropriate program designed to prepare young people for self-sufficiency upon discharge.When the Chelsea Foyer at the Christopher was launched in 2004 the needs of this population were beginning to be recognized. Now, the 18-to-25-year range is increasingly understood as an important developmental stage in which young people who have experienced great challenges can be positioned for lifetime employment and self-sufficiency instead of reliance of public assistance and chronic risk of homelessness. Programs across the country are exploring new housing models and best practices to address the problem of youth homelessness. However, this national conversation requires Federal participation and a national policy on youth is needed to elevate public understanding of this issue and underscore the benefits and cost savings of addressing the needs of these young people so they can lead productive, independent lives.This report aims to provide perspectives to facilitate this conversation. A general overview of lessons learned is offered in the final section -- Section V. The history of the development of the Chelsea Foyer at the Christopher, financing of the building and lessons on use of space and partnership development can be found in Section I. The program and practice lessons on working with this population are described in Section II. Funding and costs for the program are outlined in Section III. A review of current data is presented in section IV

'Variation' : 32 short performances

'Variation' consists of 32 short performances varying in length from 35 seconds to 6 minutes and 4 seconds. The performances occured at 1.30pm on 32 consecutive weekdays in the foyer space at Back Hill, London

Verification (5 decades)

Verification (5 decades) is a series of 5 short performances in the foyer space at Back Hill, London. They took place on the following dates in 2009: 14th January, 4th February, 18th February, 4th March, 18th March. Verification (5 decades) is a companion piece to 'Variation'

Où en est le foyer de trypanosomiase humaine de Mossaka (Congo) ?

Le foyer de Mossaka (sur la basse Sangha, région de la Cuvette au Congo) évolue depuis quelques années de façon inquiétante. En 1989, à la suite d'une prospection que nous avions réalisée dans le foyer, nous avions insisté sur l'urgence des mesures à prendre. Depuis, la situation s'est aggravée tant en ce qui concerne le nombre des malades dépistés (74 en 1987, 171 en 1989, 200 en 1991) qu'en ce qui concerne la population concernée (le foyer s'est étendu ; le nombre des villages ou l'on dépistait des malades est passé de 3 en 1987, à 12 en 1989 et 17 en 1991). Si des mesures ne sont pas prises rapidement, on ne peut que craindre une dramatique extension du foyer de la basse Sangha. (Résumé d'auteur

Robot Navigation in Unseen Spaces using an Abstract Map

Human navigation in built environments depends on symbolic spatial information which has unrealised potential to enhance robot navigation capabilities. Information sources such as labels, signs, maps, planners, spoken directions, and navigational gestures communicate a wealth of spatial information to the navigators of built environments; a wealth of information that robots typically ignore. We present a robot navigation system that uses the same symbolic spatial information employed by humans to purposefully navigate in unseen built environments with a level of performance comparable to humans. The navigation system uses a novel data structure called the abstract map to imagine malleable spatial models for unseen spaces from spatial symbols. Sensorimotor perceptions from a robot are then employed to provide purposeful navigation to symbolic goal locations in the unseen environment. We show how a dynamic system can be used to create malleable spatial models for the abstract map, and provide an open source implementation to encourage future work in the area of symbolic navigation. Symbolic navigation performance of humans and a robot is evaluated in a real-world built environment. The paper concludes with a qualitative analysis of human navigation strategies, providing further insights into how the symbolic navigation capabilities of robots in unseen built environments can be improved in the future.Comment: 15 pages, published in IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (http://doi.org/10.1109/TCDS.2020.2993855), see https://btalb.github.io/abstract_map/ for access to softwar

ALANZ handbook

Co-edited Handbook for participants at December ALANZ Symposiu