April 2020

By Byrhonda Lyons, Cal Matters, April 30, 2020 The vast majority of people who were unhoused in California before coronavirus swept across the state are exactly where they were. Encampments still line the streets. Shelters feel more like a risk than a refuge. And affordable housing is as elusive as ever. Watch as they capture moments from their everyday lives — and talk about how they struggle to stay safe and healthy under circumstances that have often grown only more hazardous. For the...

By Lori Basheda, California Healthline, April 30, 2020 Jane Gunter, a nurse practitioner in Tuolumne County, California, has long wanted to specialize in mental health so she can treat patients who have anxiety, depression and more complicated mental illnesses. Her county, a rural outpost in the Sierra Nevada foothills with a population of about 54,000, has only five psychiatrists — “a huge shortage,” she said. But Gunter, 56, wasn’t about to quit her job at the Me-Wuk Indian Health Center...

By Lulu Orozco, The New York Times, April 30, 2020 It was 5 p.m. on a recent Wednesday when Domitila Alvarez, 52, set down her cutting tools and walked from the broccoli fields to the crowded company bus taking the workers back to town. Ms. Alvarez did her best to protect herself before boarding. She wound a white bandanna tight over her face, leaving just a sliver for her eyes. She pulled on two pairs of gloves — a latex pair and then a cloth pair. “The truth is,” Ms. Alvarez said, “we all...

By Manuela Tobias and Robert Rodriguez, Cal Matters, April 11, 2020 Last week, Isabel Solorio turned away five families from the Lanare food bank serving farmworkers in rural Fresno County. There just wasn’t enough food to feed the 215 families who showed up. It was twice the number of families that needed food a week earlier, she said. But that same week, on a farm just 20 minutes away, at least two fields of fresh lettuce were disced back into the ground, left to rot as the restaurants...

By Michelle Esrick, Cracked Up Movie, April 2020 — A letter from Director Michelle Esrick — Dear friends, My heart goes out to everyone during this extremely challenging and unprecedented time. We are all experiencing what a traumatic event this is for everyone around the world -- from the reports we all hear on the news, to stories from family and friends, and for me personally being hospitalized with Covid-19. Many trauma survivors, including myself, are experiencing higher levels of...

By Genoa Barrow, The Sacramento Observer, April 29, 2020 As a pediatrician, Dr. Nadine Burke-Harris has spent years trying to get African American families in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point area to see the long term benefits of addressing their mental health. As California’s first Surgeon General, Dr. Burke-Harris is driving home the message on a larger scale. She’s done extensive research on adverse childhood experiences and toxic stress and getting to their root causes. In speaking...

The English version launched on April 19, 2020, under the title Fighting the Big Virus: Trinka, Sam, and Littletown Work Together. It is a free resource developed in collaboration with the National Child Traumatic Stress Network and Piplo Productions . The Spanish version is now available. Please help us to help the story reach families who may benefit from it. Este cuento fue creado para ayudar a los niños pequeños y a sus familias a hablar acerca de sus experiencias y sentimientos...

By Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, April 29, 2020 In the midst of a global pandemic, pediatricians are serving a unique role. While the coronavirus is generally showing milder effects on babies and children than on adults, there are still health concerns and considerations for infants in need of scheduled vaccinations, and kids who are home all day with parents who may be facing stressful situations. In the second episode of our special COVID-19 series of The Brain...

By The Children's Movement of California, April 28, 2020 By now, every single household across the country should have received multiple mailers with instructions on how to fill out the 2020 Census. Many community organizations are grappling with how to engage members and families as on-the-ground, door-to-door outreach and engagement strategies -- that have proven to be effective in the past – have been halted due to the COVID-19 pandemic at least until the end of May. Phone calls, text...

By Samantha Young, Kaiser Health News, April 28, 2020 During the first week of school closures in San Jose, state Sen. Jim Beall’s office received more than a dozen phone calls from distressed parents and caregivers. The problem: They couldn’t get free lunches because school district rules required children be present to receive a meal. A grandmother caring for at least seven children couldn’t fit them all in her car. One parent had a sick child who needed to stay at home, and another was...

By Alexei Koseff, San Francisco Chronicle, April 28, 2020 California schools could reopen this summer to help make up for a “learning loss” that early closures forced by the coronavirus pandemic caused this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Tuesday. Schools typically start the academic year in mid- to late August, but the governor said that might be moved up to as early as July if the pandemic is under control. “We recognize there has been a learning loss,” Newsom said at a news conference. “We...

By Claudia Boyd-Barrett, California Health Care Foundation, April 24, 2020 Many county correctional facilities throughout California are reducing their teeming populations to prevent large-scale COVID-19 outbreaks. The dorm rooms, dining halls, and recreation areas in many of these institutions are breeding grounds for spreading the virus, experts say. People have been complaining for weeks that inmates don’t have hand sanitizer or equipment like masks to protect themselves and that cramped...