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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.

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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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There are 199 results  for your search.  View and Refine Your Search Terms

  • With Car Heists At Record Levels, Citizen Sleuths Take To Facebook To Find Their Stolen Rides

    Bob Chiarito
    2021-02-03 21:55:29 UTC
    0

    February 03, 2021 |

    Block Club Chicago |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Chicago, Illinois

    The Chicago Stolen Car Directory is a Facebook group that helps people find their stolen cars and makes the police aware of abandoned cars that may have been stolen. The recently formed group, with 14,400 members, has helped recover more than 200 cars at a time when auto theft and carjackings in Chicago have risen substantially. While the group's effect on the crime rate is unknown, it has encouraged more aggressive enforcement efforts while reuniting people with their property.

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  • Next Step goes to the front lines of gun violence in Minneapolis, starting with the shooting victims

    Maya Rao
    2021-02-01 19:33:05 UTC
    0

    January 30, 2021 |

    Minneapolis Star Tribune |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Minneapolis, Minnesota

    Next Step is a hospital-based violence intervention program based at Minneapolis' Hennepin County Medical Center that counsels gunshot victims to try to help lower the chances that they will be harmed again or seek to harm others. Focusing on young adults and their families, the program starts its work when a victim is hospitalized. The counseling and connections to support services can continue for months and even years.

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  • An Oregon city's decades-old alternative to police

    David Kroman, Sara Bernard
    2021-02-25 20:15:47 UTC
    0

    January 28, 2021 |

    Crosscut |

    Podcast |

    Over 15 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, Eugene, Oregon

    Like many cities, Seattle is looking to Eugene, Oregon, for a model to shift resources from police to unarmed crisis responders handling 911 calls about mental health, addiction, family conflict, and other non-criminal problems. Eugene's CAHOOTS program has been doing such work for half a century, and since 1989 sending medic-and-counselor teams on calls. In 2019 it saved $8 million in police costs and $14 million for ambulances and emergency room visits. But, while taking police out of situations where they might cause more problems than they solve, it's only as good as its region's social services.

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  • Seattle Cut Its Police Budget. Now the Public Will Decide How To Spend the Money.

    Manjeet Kaur
    2021-01-28 20:10:51 UTC
    0

    January 28, 2021 |

    The Appeal |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

    Since 2017, Seattle residents have had a direct say in how some city money is spent on neighborhood projects. It's a form of "participatory budgeting" that has been spreading from Brazil through many U.S. cities. After the 2020 racial justice protests, King County Equity Now, Decriminalize Seattle, and other groups spent several months calling for a budget that takes money from policing and invests in "true public health and safety" projects. After eight weeks of hearings, the city agreed to put $30 million – $12 million cut from police – into a citizen-controlled safety budget.

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    • 12268

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  • How reform gave way to ‘Defund the Police' in Seattle

    David Kroman, Sara Bernard
    2021-02-08 21:58:15 UTC
    0

    January 28, 2021 |

    Crosscut |

    Podcast |

    Over 15 Minutes

    Response Location: United States, Seattle, Washington

    Seattle spent nearly a decade reforming its police department and branding itself as an example of how to fix a broken system prone to violence and racial bias. Public trust improved and the use of force declined. But the protests of 2020 changed perspectives in Seattle so much that now it is a leader in taking money from the police to fund community-based responses to social problems and low-level crime. The community is divided, largely along racial and ideological lines, over whether to "defund" the police, whether police reform is even possible, and how to reimagine public safety.

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    • 12364

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  • The Free Hotline That's Saving Women's Lives by Disarming Dangerous Men

    Christina Noriega
    2021-01-25 19:15:09 UTC
    1

    January 22, 2021 |

    Medium |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: Colombia, Bogotá

    The Calm Hotline takes calls from men in Bogotá, Colombia, in an effort to address the root causes of domestic violence: a culture of machismo. Four psychologists take emergency calls – about 700 calls came in the service's first month – and works to refer the callers to an eight-week "gender transformation program" that will attempt to change men's toxic attitudes that can lead to violence. The program is patterned on a counseling hotline in the Colombian city of Barrancabermeja that was associated with a steep decline in domestic violence.

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  • After shootings hit new high, Durham to spend $935,000 on an alternative to police

    Charlie Innis
    2021-01-21 20:08:43 UTC
    0

    January 20, 2021 |

    The News & Observer |

    Text |

    800-1500 Words

    Response Location: United States, Durham, North Carolina

    Because two Durham neighborhoods using the Cure Violence method of "violence interruption" bucked the citywide trend toward higher gun violence, the city will expand its Bull City United violence-prevention program to four more neighborhoods. The additional $935,488 cost will pay for 16 employees, many of them formerly incarcerated, who will mediate disputes after a shooting, to prevent retaliation, and who will conduct outreach to people at risk of gun violence.

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  • In Eugene, Oregon, civilian response workers—not police—are dispatched to nonviolent crises

    Caitlin Yoshiko Kandil
    2021-01-26 21:26:03 UTC
    1

    January 19, 2021 |

    The Christian Century |

    Text |

    1500-3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Eugene, Oregon

    Eugene's well-established CAHOOTS program for replacing police as first responders to certain types of 911 calls has become a model for multiple cities as they seek to replicate its success in an era of questioning the role of police. While it saves its city money and replaces arrests and possible violence with social and health services for people needing housing or mental health care, or suffering from addiction, CAHOOTS is somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of programs responding to these challenges. Communities' differences will dictate what works best for them.

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  • How Asian Canadians Are Fighting Racism During the Pandemic

    Erica Ngao
    2021-07-01 15:03:31 UTC
    0

    January 19, 2021 |

    Reader's Digest Canada |

    Text |

    Under 800 Words

    Response Location: Canada, Vancouver, British Columbia

    By establishing online platforms to make anonymous reports of anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic, two Canadian organizations elicited hundreds of stories that help victims to process their experiences. The first platform, Elimin8hate, was the creation of a filmmaker who understands the therapeutic value of storytelling as means of coping with trauma. Her Vancouver group's alliance with a Toronto organization attracted funding to train discussion leaders who will lead anti-racism discussions in government and businesses.

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    • 13364

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  • Albuquerque's vision for non-police first responders comes down to earth

    Ted Alcorn
    2021-01-19 20:30:25 UTC
    1

    January 17, 2021 |

    New Mexico In Depth |

    Text |

    Over 3000 Words

    Response Location: United States, Albuquerque, New Mexico

    In response to the 2020 policing protests, Albuquerque was among the first cities to embrace a major change in handling mental-health-crisis calls to 911. But its new Community Safety Department has foundered in its first year, a victim of inadequate planning and resources. The plan to send unarmed first responders on such calls, to reduce the risk of a violent over-reaction by the police, depended on reassigning city workers from other agencies, none of whom were mental health professionals. City councilors have sent the planners back to rethink the latest in a history of failed responses.

    Read More

    • 12171

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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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