June 2020

By Theresa Clift, The Sacramento Bee, June 16, 2020 The leader of a citizen commission tasked with helping the Sacramento City Council decide how to spend tens of millions of dollars in new sales tax money is claiming the commission has been excluded from the process. And she wants nearly $50 million in tax dollars headed to the police department budget to be shifted instead toward economic development, affordable housing and homelessness initiatives. Flojaune Cofer, chairwoman of the...

By David Sirota, Too Much Information, June 16, 2020 In recent weeks, we’ve seen health care industry CEOs report paying themselves $2.4 billion as 27 million people were thrown off their health care coverage. We’ve also seen Americans being charged anywhere from $400,000 to $1.1 million for COVID treatment, and facing $2,000 bills for coronavirus tests. In response, polls show Americans remain deeply concerned about the current health care system, and support for Medicare for All has surged...

For the next few weeks, the new guided imagery tracks available in Spanish are shared via the Health Journeys website at no cost. Please check them. To find more about the series and the translator, go here. To sample the meditations, in Spanish, go here.

By Anna V. Smith, High Country News, June 11, 2020 As citizens across the country fill the streets to protest police killings of Black people , the violent response from law enforcement has added urgency to a national conversation about police brutality. Pressure is mounting to reform or abolish police departments. City officials in Western urban centers like Los Angeles are reducing police budgets — L.A.’s currently totals $1.8 billion — and reinvesting in underfunded social initiatives.

By Terry Gross, National Public Radio, June 16, 2020 In The Turnaway Study, Diana Greene Foster shares research conducted over 10 years with about 1,000 women who had or were denied abortions, tracking impacts on mental, physical and economic health. TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. When Mike Pence was running for vice president, he said, if we appoint strict constructionists to the Supreme Court, as Donald Trump intends to do, I believe we will see Roe v. Wade...

By Equal Justice Initiative, June 2020 Introduction In 1865, after two and a half centuries of brutal enslavement, Black Americans had great hope that emancipation would finally mean real freedom and opportunity. Most formerly enslaved people in the United States were remarkably willing to live peacefully with those who had held them in bondage despite the violence they had suffered and the degradation they had endured. Emancipated Black people put aside their enslavement and embraced...

By KQED Science, KQED, June 14, 2020 The coronavirus pandemic and the recent killing of George Floyd have brought longstanding racial inequities into sharp focus. One of those disparities concerns the high rate of coronavirus transmission among people of color. To talk about the intersection of race and health, KQED's Brian Watt spoke last week with California Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, who is known for her pioneering work on the role that childhood stress and trauma play on...

Not only are these sentences profound, but they reveal why Trump and his minions could not respond to covid and why the folks in OC revolted against masks and why Southwestern America is about to see avoidable deaths. (italics mine) It also uncovers the cultural and political lies that let fester the racism, poverty, stress and disarray that contribute so much to the epidemic of child abuse. "The (covid) pandemic has revealed, in the most profound way possible, the interconnectedness of a...

By Dakota Smith, Los Angeles Times, June 16, 2020 Several Los Angeles City Council members called Tuesday for a new emergency-response model that uses trained specialists, rather than LAPD officers, to render aid to homeless people and those suffering from mental health and substance abuse issues. A motion submitted by City Council members Nury Martinez, Herb Wesson, Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Curren Price and Bob Blumenfield asks city departments to work with the Los Angeles Police Department...

By Olga Rodriguez, Public Policy Institute of California, June 17, 2020 Mental health is the biggest issue students at California community colleges say they are facing during the pandemic. That is, 67% of students report higher levels of anxiety, stress, depression, or other mental distress. The sudden transition to an online learning environment drives some of this stress, as do struggles with job and income loss or paying for housing and utilities. For some students, the loss of income...

ACEs Aware in Action Welcome to the first issue of the ACEs Aware monthly newsletter, ACEs Aware in Action . Our goal is to keep you up to date on all the important work being done by providers, ACEs Aware partners, and the community to make sure everyone is ACEs Aware. Please share this with your colleagues and constituents and encourage them to visit www.ACEsAware.org to join the mailing list. Like many of you, we have watched as the events of the last weeks have brought renewed attention...

Guest Author, 6/17/20, positiveexperience.org Today’s post is based on an interview with Rev. Darrell Armstrong, pastor of the Shiloh Baptist Church of Trenton, NJ for the past 20 years. He is considered a national leader on issues pertaining to child welfare and family strengthening. Most questions contain links to video excerpts of the original interview. To watch, click the link on the corresponding question. Introduce yourself to our blog readers? My name is Darrell Armstrong. I’m in my...