February 2021

Amanda Winn, MSW, 2/4/21, positiveexperience.org/blog Throughout Black History Month (which, as Angela Davis reminds us, should be every month, since Black history IS American history), the team at HOPE will be lifting up the achievements of Black people in the fields of public health, education, and child welfare. We’ll be looking at HOPE’s origins and reflecting on the important groundwork that was laid by Black scientists, doctors, social workers, and activists. As a team, though, we felt...

In this installment of the A Better Normal community discussion, ACEs Connection's Race & Equity workgroup reconvenes and discusses ACEs Connection’s internal processes to address racism, racial trauma and civil unrest. In this discussion, we will highlight the five ways ACEs initiatives, including our own, get DEI wrong. Discussions will include racial trauma, historical trauma, healing centered practices and effective DEI strategies. In addition to our internal processes, ACEs...

Twenty years of research have established the connection between adverse childhood experiences and long-term health. Now researchers are looking for ways to measure the biology behind the correlation and try to reverse it.

By Elizabeth Chou, Los Angeles Daily News, February 1, 2021 The first a series of villages made up of “tiny homes” officially opened its doors at a North Hollywood park Monday, Feb. 2, welcoming its first people who were coming in from experiencing homelessness along nearby streets. The village sits along Chandler Boulevard, in a half-acre plot the north end of North Hollywood Recreation Center, and has room for up to 75 people. At the site, which had once been proposed for a charter school,...

By Shawn Hubler, The New York Times, January 30, 2021 The coronavirus test center on A Street was bustling on a recent morning. Michael Duey was in line, as usual, with his teenage son. Margery Hayes waited for her wife in the parking lot. Dr. Elizabeth Pham hustled her children in for a quick pit stop. Inside, each received a five-minute screening for the virus, administered and paid for by the University of California, Davis. Yet none of them is associated with the school. All last fall,...

When possession of marijuana for personal use was legalized in California in 2016, Ingrid Archie was among the law’s most ardent supporters. Archie was convinced the new law – known as Proposition 64 on the ballot -- would help reverse the harm the country’s harsh and punitive drug laws had exacted on communities of color. In particular, she was bursting with hope at the law’s promise that victims of the War on Drugs would be given priority to make a living in the cannabis industry and start...

By Jeremy Loudenback, The Imprint, January 24, 2021 Newly elected Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón is moving quickly to change how youth are prosecuted and held accountable for crimes – hiring a public defender to overhaul long-standing juvenile justice policies, ending the practice of trying children in adult court and halting the prosecution of truancy cases. Among other sweeping changes to how adults are prosecuted, he has said his office will not file charges against...

Our bodies are wired for survival, thanks to our biological stress response system. However, without buffering protections, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), like neglect and abuse, can lead to a toxic stress response. Toxic stress response is a dysregulated biological stress response and subsequent changes in other biological and physiological functions. ACEs and the toxic stress response are associated with some of the most common, costly, and serious health conditions. Fortunately, we...

Today, Beyond 12 and Children Now released Addressing the Health Care Workforce Crisis Begins with Diversifying the Student Pipeline , a policy brief that highlights the need to increase the number of health care professionals in California, reviews the benefits of diversifying student pipelines into health professions, and makes key recommendations for state policymakers to consider that would increase the number of first-generation, low-income and underrepresented students of color who...

This webinar includes a discussion and concrete example of a trauma-informed network of care , a group of interdisciplinary health, education, and human service professionals, community members, and organizations that support adults, children, and families by providing access to evidence-based “buffering” resources and supports that help to prevent, treat, and heal the harmful consequences of toxic stress. Speakers present: Definitions and guidance on key elements of a trauma-informed...

OVERVIEW Child care is a critical support for working families that allows parents to pursue opportunities for employment and economic mobility. 1,2 Child care’s vital role in the lives of families and in the overall economy is reflected in federal and state programs such as the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) that aim to improve low-income families’ access to care options that support parents’ work efforts. 3 A key premise of these programs is that families should have access...