People love to ask: "What's your secret?" Sometimes they want to know how I defy gravity on the mat. Other times they want to know how I went from foster care to the Olympics.

My answer to both is the same: a mix of talent, hard work and grabbing the right opportunity when given the chance. When I was far too young to know it, others around me saw that I had a gift for gymnastics. Without their encouragement and support, I would have never been a gymnast.

I was blessed to have both a gift and the chance to develop it. But many people aren't so lucky.

Did you know that in the United States there are nearly 400,000 children and youth in foster care? In my mind, those are 400,000 talents waiting to be discovered. But as few as 3% of foster kids go on to earn a bachelor's degree, compared to about 30% of the general population.
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Is it possible that all of these young people have no desire to go on to higher education? Clearly not. They simply lack the support, and often the financial resources and opportunity to realize their potential.

So, I'm speaking up on their behalf to say it's time for an education revolution. It's time for a new model, where everyone has an opportunity to learn no matter their background.

And I want to advocate for these kids because I was a foster care kid myself. My road to success began the day my grandfather and his wife officially adopted my sister and me. My birth mother suffered from drug addiction, and when I was just three years old, my siblings and I were removed from her custody. From there, we bounced around until I was six and my grandparents made the brave move to adopt us.

OLYMPIA – People around the state can safely dispose of their unused medications during events on Oct. 26.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will be hosting drug take-back events from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at several locations in Washington. Prescription and over-the-counter medications will be accepted. Medications can remain in their original containers and labels do not need to be removed. Medications not in their original containers also will be accepted.

This take-back event helps support three statewide campaigns from the Health Care Authority: Starts with One, Tribal Opioid Solutions, and Take Back Your Meds. These campaigns inform and educate young adults, their parents, and older adults about the dangers of prescription drug misuse and the importance of safe storage, use, and disposal, particularly for opioids.

About 75 percent of opioid misuse starts with people using medication that wasn’t prescribed for them, usually taken from a friend or family member. Simple steps like safely disposing of unused medications can stop them from being misused.
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“Participating in these take-back events is one way people can help tackle the opioid crisis and protect loved ones,” said Dr. Charissa Fotinos, HCA deputy chief medical officer.

We are moving forward when it comes to addressing addiction in our communities. Over the past 15 years, growing numbers of recovery community organizations have opened their doors, recovery high schools have been established, family support organizations have been founded, and both state and federal legislation has been passed. Every accomplishment has terrific positive impact in a community, and should be celebrated.
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So why, given the progress we’ve made and what we’ve achieved, does it remain imperative to truly organize our communities to further combat America’s most significant public health crisis?

Community organizing means generating power that is long lasting and sustainable — and that’s the type of power we need to save lives. Power is defined as, “the ability to act or produce an effect.” When social justice movements are not obtaining the results they hope to achieve, inevitably the root cause of this stems from a lack of power.

As families sent their children back to class last month, Education Lab and The Seattle Times reported on the reasons why school districts in Washington spend as much as $31.5 million on transportation for homeless students.

Namely, it’s the law: For more than three decades, the federal government has guaranteed that families experiencing homelessness have the right to keep their children in the last school they attended before losing their housing. And research has found that this stability helps homeless students do better in school.

That’s why educators see value in providing a stable school environment for homeless students, and it’s a right that Congress extended to youth in the foster-care system four years ago.
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But most states have struggled to meet that and other new provisions meant to support the roughly 270,000 school-aged youth in foster care, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported Wednesday.