Alex Cohen is the Director of Learning and Evaluation for the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. The toll of the opioid epidemic is often measured in lives lost due to overdose—and for good reason. It’s estimated that, across the United States, 115 people die of opioid overdose every day. But the impact of opioids can also be seen in HIV and Hepatitis C infections, which are being driven up by rising numbers of individuals injecting opioids. From 2013 to 2017, Indiana’s Marion County has seen a 1,000 percent increase in acute Hepatitis C cases, mirroring national trends. HIV has also spiked in recent years. These patterns have inspired the Marion County […]

Claire Fiddian-Green is the President & CEO of the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation. It is no secret that the U.S. struggles with a skills gap. According to a March 2018 report released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation and Burning Glass Technologies, “surveys of employers routinely find that companies have difficulty finding skilled workers.” This national finding holds true in Indiana, which faces a gap in “middle skill” jobs – i.e., jobs that require more than a high school education but not necessarily a four-year college degree. There are many factors that contribute to our state’s skills gap, perhaps the most fundamental of which is that too many Hoosier […]