Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. The opioid epidemic continues to plague Indianapolis and the rest of the state. With the rise in opioid misuse, there has been a parallel surge in pregnant women with opioid use disorder. Infants born to opioid-dependent mothers are at a high risk for Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome. NAS, which results from babies experiencing withdrawal from opioids once they leave the womb, leads to dehydration and poor weight gain, vomiting, tremors, irritability, high-pitched crying and seizures. With the rise of opioid epidemic, the incidence of NAS nationwide tripled from 1999 to 2013. NAS is becoming so common […]

Ellen Quigley is the Vice President of Programs at the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation An Interview with Scott Bess, Head of School, Purdue Polytechnic High School Background In 2017, the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation awarded a $1.25 million three-year grant to support the launch and replication of Purdue Polytechnic High School Indianapolis (PPHS), a first-of-its-kind urban high school model aimed at developing a new generation of talent with science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills to meet the needs of an evolving workforce.  Combining personalized learning with project-based curriculum, Purdue University created this model to establish new pathways for Indianapolis’ low-income, under-represented minority students to continue their higher education at […]