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Karen Clemmer, the Northwest community facilitator with ACEs Connection, was already deeply interested in the CDC/Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study when she and a colleague from the Child Parent Institute were invited to lunch by ACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens in 2012. But that lunch meeting changed everything. Karen Clemmer “Jane helped us see a bigger world,” says Clemmer. “She came with a much wider lens. She didn’t look only at Sonoma County, she...

Growing up in suburban New Jersey, Dana Kwitnicki, a physician assistant, says she always wanted to be in health care. Her dad is a dentist, her mother a teacher, and she grew up with several other family members also in medicine. Kwitnicki learned about becoming a PA while attending Northeastern University in Boston, MA, where she earned a degree in health sciences. After undergraduate school, she earned a Master’s in Physician Assistant Studies at Philadelphia University through a vigorous...

Hello 4CA friends – Sending a quick update on the state budget. Please add on if you have more/different information – thanks! The short story is that many of the worst cuts that were discussed were NOT enacted in the final budget, which is good news. Some of the items most related to childhood trauma include: The final budget rejects the May Revise proposal to reduce $4.5 million General fund from the Black Infant Health Program . While there will be no cuts to Prop 56 Medi-Cal supplemental...

From ACEs Aware, July 1, 2020 ACEs Aware hosted a webinar on June 24th – “ Fundamentals of ACE Screening and Response in Pediatrics. ” You can watch the webinar at ACEsAware.org . Dr. Burke Harris and three other health care providers walked through two case studies to show how ACE screening can impact their clinical decision-making. Panelists: Nadine Burke Harris, MD, MPH, FAAP – California Surgeon General Lisa Gutiérrez Wang, PhD – Director of Children’s Behavioral Health, Santa Cruz...

By Vani Suresh, June 30, 2020, DailyCal. The California surgeon general’s office and the Department of Health Care Services recently awarded First 5 Alameda County a $325,470 grant to participate in the state’s ACEs, or adverse childhood experiences, Aware initiative. The grant, announced Thursday, will go toward training about ACEs for MediCal providers in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, according to a press release. Help Me Grow, a First 5 Alameda County program, will continue...

By Marianna Dale, July 1, 2020, LAist. A pair of California tax credit programs that are often worth thousands of dollars for families with young children will be open to all immigrant parents under the state budget signed by Governor Gavin Newsom this week. The Earned Income and Young Child Tax Credit programs had previously excluded anyone who files their taxes with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number , or ITIN, because they don’t have a Social Security number. Those families will...

By Lori Carter, July 1,2020, Press Democrat. Santa Rosa police will begin collecting demographic data on people its officers stop earlier than state law requires in an effort to quantify and ultimately prevent racial profiling. Chief Ray Navarro said Wednesday the department is working to begin gathering certain demographic details about pedestrian and traffic stops by 2021, one year earlier than required by the state Racial and Identity Profiling Act. The law, passed in 2015, gave smaller...

By Michael Burke, EdSource, July 1, 2020 Los Angeles Unified will cut $25 million from its school police, reducing the department’s budget by more than one-third following several weeks of protests from Black students and activists who have called on the district to reform its police force. The district’s school board voted 4-3 late Tuesday to make the cuts, which will take effect immediately in L.A. Unified’s 2020-21 budget and result in the layoffs of 65 officers, in addition to...

By Jill Cowan, The New York Times, July 1, 2020 For Californians, the economic devastation wrought by the pandemic has only deepened existing inequality. When we asked what you wanted to know about how the pandemic is reshaping life in the Golden State, Erin Durham, a former San Franciscan now living in Europe, asked about the kinds of social programs she’s seen there, or whether California might implement one that has recently gained traction: a universal basic income . “I believe that the...

By Betty Marquez Rosales, EdSource, July 1, 2020 With reduced work hours and a baby on the way, Maraya Bermudez stocks up on groceries for the week at the food pantry on her community college campus. She frequented the Fullerton College food pantry sparingly during the school year, but she now goes every week to pick up bags that often include rice, beans, vegetables, fruits, milk and snacks. A former foster youth, she has also been eligible for debit cards from her college that she can use...

By Clyde W. Yancy, MD, MSc 1 , JAMA. Published June 30, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.12532 E choes of “medicine as the noble profession” continue to resonate, now 35 years since my legendary Chair of Medicine imbued me with this guiding ethos. Nobility in medicine is not obsolete; the selflessness, courage, self-sacrifice, and altruism on gallant display in the response to COVID-19 reassures that at its core, this ethic of egalitarian service remains intact and deeply established in the DNA...

Education leaders seek collaboration to build equitable support programs By Sierra Lopez Daily Journal correspondent Jun 29, 2020 Parents preparing for a return to the office following a broader county health order are now faced with weighing the benefits of enrolling their children in child care services against the existing financial burden of programs and potential exposure to COVID-19. “If there’s going to be a workforce recovery we need to solve this child care issue. [Employers]...