Tagged With "Sexually Exploited Minors"
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2020 Sex and Perinatal Mental Health Conference
Sex & Perinatal Mental Health Conference on January 13th and 14th, 2020 at The California Endowment. This dynamic training will delve into areas such as postpartum sex, birth trauma, cultural attitudes about sex, gender and sexuality, gender affirming care, personal stories and more. We have an amazing lineup of speakers and wanted to introduce you to a few over the next couple of weeks. Two day training that will explore how sex and sexuality impact and interact with mental health...
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37th Annual Child Abuse Prevention Symposium Recap
"Speak Out! Confronting the Culture of Child Sexual Abuse and Secrecy" was the theme of Santa Clara County's 37th Annual Child Abuse Prevention Symposium which featured a Keynote conversation with Olympic Gold Medal winning gymnast and current UCLA Assistant Gymnastics Coach Jordyn Wieber. Jordyn, and other athletes and survivors of former USA Gymnastics team doctor and serial child sex abuser Larry Nassar, earlier spoke to a U.S. Senate Subcommittee about a “culture of silence” more...
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ACEs Aware Webinar: Trauma-informed practices to address stress from COVID-19
How can health care providers take care of themselves, their colleagues and their patients during this COVID-19 pandemic? First and foremost is recognizing how the pandemic can stir up trauma from the past, said Dr. Alicia Lieberman, a psychologist specializing in trauma. “COVID19 is reawakening traumatic reminders in many of us and in the families we work with. And that often makes it difficult for parents to protect themselves and their children,” she noted. Lieberman, the director of the...
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Action Alert! Campaign for restorative discipline in schools deadline TOMORROW!
The Children’s Movement is helping to promote restorative justice practices in schools by eliminating suspensions or expulsions for “willful defiance” through Senate Bill 607 authored by Senator Nancy Skinner . You can view the letter at this link here , and sign on before the deadline tomorrow, Wednesday 2/21, at 5pm. Five years ago, California schools issued an astounding 709,702 suspensions, nearly half for “defiance/disruption,” a catch-all category used to justify disciplinary action...
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California Advocates Celebrate as Governor Signs Law to Address Overuse of Suspensions in Schools! [fixschooldiscipline.com]
By Fix School Discipline, September 16, 2019 SB 419 will help keep students in school, increase student success, and increase high school graduation Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation to eliminate suspensions for minor misbehaviors and protect California students from discriminatory and harmful school climates. Under Senate Bill 419, which was introduced by Senator Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley), school districts will no longer be permitted to use defiance or disruption, as justification...
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California Child Welfare Policy and Progress, Winter Issue [Insight]
The California Child Welfare Co-Investment Partnership Report This issue of in sights provides an overview of the latest legislative developments in California, including data and perspectives on the policy and practice transformation taking place with the Continuum of Care Reform (CCR). Beyond a comprehensive summary of child welfare state legislation, this issue also includes a discussion on the key provisions of the Family First Prevention Services Act. The issue concludes with...
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California Legislators Take Aim at School-based Policing [ChronicleofSocialChange.org]
State laws that encourage alternatives to school-based policing in California may have done little so far to decrease the number of students funneled into the school-to-prison pipeline, but a bill introduced in January aims to change this through policy enforcement and data collection. Current state law requires California schools to collect data on police and student interactions to be submitted to the Department of Justice upon request. In reality, the law’s enforcement mechanisms are...
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California Legislature Orders Juvenile Justice Data Overhaul [JJIE.org]
Alex Sanchez knows the temptations of joining gangs for young Central American immigrants. He fled to the United States in 1979 as an unaccompanied minor (he was 7, his brother 5) to escape the Salvadoran civil war. Eventually he got involved in gang violence, went to prison and was deported before returning to the United States illegally. He was granted political asylum in 2002 and in 2006 became the executive director of Homies Unidos , a nonprofit violence- and gang-prevention...
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Why is Sacramento failing its black students? (newsreview.com)
According to researchers from San Diego State University and University of California, Los Angeles, Sacramento schools disproportionately suspend black boys. The researchers’ new study, “The Capitol of Suspensions: Examining the Racial Exclusion of Black Males in Sacramento County,” revealed that the schools with the worst record are right here in the state capital: The Sacramento City Unified School District has suspended more black boys than any other district in the state—including Los...
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Youth court banishes blame; leads with ACEs science
YMCA Marin County Youth Court in San Rafael, California In her opening statement, 17-year-old youth advocate Eva advises jurors how to proceed and summarizes her “client’s” good qualities. “As you will see, Julian is genuine, well-spoken and friendly. I recommend asking him about his friends and family, his future plans and his activities outside of school.” (First names only of all minors are used to protect their privacy.) Welcome to the YMCA Marin County (CA) Youth Court, one of 1,400...
Ask the Community
Anyone using MHSA or other funds in innovative ways to address ACEs or trauma?
Question: Please share examples of innovative uses of existing funding to address ACEs and trauma. For example, Mental Health Services Act has a funding category called "Innovative Projects" which might be a way to fund ACEs and trauma related efforts. Are you aware of any CA communities that have found ways to utilize MHSA or other funds in unexpected ways - that have the potential of addressing trauma and ACEs? See below and attached for more background re MHSA. Background: The CA...
Ask the Community
New Program Director Job, LCSW for Sexually Exploited Youth Residential Prog
Program Director, Commercially Sexually Exploited Youth, Hayward Click here for more information: Residential Program Director LCSW required This is a unique opportunity to get involved with the launch of a brand new, well-funded program and influence program design from its outset. Further the program allows for rich wrap-around services for clients. The Residential Program Director provides clinical care, supervision and program leadership to transition age youth in need of intensive out...
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State Dropping Ball in Dealing With Childhood Trauma, New Report Says [CaliforniaHealthline.org]
The lowest of 31 grades issued in the 2016 California Children's Report Card released on Wednesday was for dealing with the effects of childhood trauma. In Children Now's biennial assessment of the status of California kids, researchers gave the state a "D-" for how it deals with childhood trauma. The report contends that children who experience traumatic problems such as abuse, neglect and witnessing violence at home can suffer serious long-term consequences, including health...
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States Produce a Bumper Crop of ACEs bills in 2017—nearly 40 bills in 18 states
A scan done in March by the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) through StateNet of bills introduced in 2017 that specifically include adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in the text produced a surprising volume of bills (close of 40) in a large number of states (18). A scan done a year ago produced less than a handful. NCSL is a bipartisan organization that serves both state legislators and their staffs. The shear volume of bills in so many states represents a promising...
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Riverside County aims to help mentally ill stop cycle of incarceration (cafwd.org)
When a national report was issued this summer that showed incarceration has largely replaced hospitalization for the severely mentally ill, the analysis reinforced what many counties across the country had been experiencing, including Riverside County. And according the Riverside County Jail Utilization Study conducted by CA Fwd, mentally ill offenders stayed in Riverside County jails for longer periods of time and were booked more often. The national report and the Riverside County jail...
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Santa Clara County Boosts Help for Sexual Assault Victims, Reports Decline in Domestic Violence Deaths [mv-voice.com]
By Mountain View Voice, September 25, 2019 The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday, Sept. 24, to increase funding for services for victims of sexual assault and create a new office to address gender-based violence in the county. The board voted to create the Santa Clara County Office of Gender-Based Violence to oversee services for survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence and human trafficking. County leaders plan to fill the positions in the new office...
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Symptoms of Depression During and After Pregnancy
In order to have the best chance of improving outcomes for the mother and infant, routine screening and treatment for depression should begin early in pregnancy, a time when women have increased contact with the health care system.
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Teen courts help to keep kids out of juvenile court system [CabinetReport.com]
In mock courtrooms supervised by a local judge, first-time teen offenders face a jury of their peers and receive sentences that often keep them in school and out of the juvenile justice system for minor crimes. Combined with other statewide efforts such as promoting restorative justice techniques in schools and eliminating zero tolerance policies, youth courts are helping to reduce the number of incarcerated teens in California charged with minor crimes. “We catch these kids early, and it’s...
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The Economics of Child Abuse: A Study of California
While the impact of maltreatment on a child and their family is devastating, child maltreatment also has serious effects far beyond those for the victim. Maltreatment results in ongoing costs to taxpayers, institutions, businesses, and society at large. Local communities bear the brunt of these costs in the form of medical, educational, and judicial costs, though more tragic signs are seen in homelessness, addiction, and teen pregnancy. To create a concrete understanding of the widespread...
Calendar Event
California SB 607 Educator Call-in Day on May 22nd
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Trauma Transformed launches regional effort in San Francisco Bay Area
Nearly 300 impassioned and committed people crowded into the Green Room at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center last week to launch Trauma Transformed. Known as T2, the regional effort representing the San Francisco...
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Trump Administration has Separated 900 Migrant Children Despite Order to Stop Practice [latimes.com]
By Kristina Davis, Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2019 The Trump administration has separated 911 migrant children from their parents at the border since a San Diego federal judge last summer ordered an end to the systemic practice, the American Civil Liberties Union reported to the court Tuesday. The continuing separations are largely blamed on parental criminal history — an exception that U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw has carved out in the ongoing litigation. But lawyers with the ACLU argue...
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Two New Grant Opportunities for Youth Development and Diversion Services
In 2019, more than $40 million will become available to fund community-based, culturally rooted, trauma-informed services for youth in California as alternatives to arrest and incarceration. Thousands of California youth are arrested every year for low-level offenses. Youth who are arrested or incarcerated for low-level offenses are less likely to graduate high school, more likely to suffer negative health-outcomes, and more likely to have later contact with the justice system.
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Early Discount 20th Annual Families & Fathers Conference
Call to action- Fathers and Families Coalition of America is nearing the 20th Annual Families and Fathers Conference, March 4-7, 2019 in Los Angeles, California with a comprehensive program that hosts presenters from the United Kingdom, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Bolivia and throughout the United States. We are providing the conference information for your consideration to participate. We are asking you to share this conference information with your community...
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Evidence justifies limiting student suspensions for disruptive behavior [edsource.org]
Gov. Jerry Brown must decide by October 1 whether to approve a bill that will expand up through grade 8 the current law that eliminated suspensions in grades K-3 for disruption or defiance of school authorities. In 2014, his approval of the law reflected a combination of his attention to research, as well as listening to superintendents, teachers, civil rights advocates and others. A new report that I co-authored shows that suspensions for disruption or defiance have nearly been eliminated...
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Facing Rising Homelessness, Los Angeles Adds Hundreds of Beds for Older Foster Youths [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Jeremy Loudenback, The Chronicle of Social Change, November 15, 2019 The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to boost housing options for transition-age foster youth at its meeting on Tuesday. Two separate investments totaling nearly $9.4 million will open up 237 transitional beds for foster youth at the greatest risk of homelessness over the next year. “Youth transitioning out of foster care have often experienced significant trauma throughout their young lives,” said...
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Finding Freedom - The Journey of an Unaccompanied Minor Two Years Later (The California Report, KQED)
When I first met Jennifer Cruz , she was 17 years old. She had recently made the dangerous journey to the United States all by herself to escape extreme violence plaguing her country of El Salvador. Hundreds of thousands of other unaccompanied minors from Central America did the same thing. In Jennifer’s case, gang members were threatening to kidnap and rape her if she didn’t give in to their demands. This teenager was fortunate. Not only did she make it to the U.S. safely, but she also had...
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Gold Mine: February 2020: SafeQuest Helps Those Dealing with Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault [dailyrepublic.com]
By Susan Hiland, Daily Republic, February 2, 2020 SafeQuest Solano Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping Solano County by providing prevention education, advocacy and intervention services to those affected by domestic violence and sexual assault. The organization was founded in 1976. It opened its first shelter a year later for survivors of domestic violence and their children. SafeQuest earned nonprofit status in 1983 under the name Solano Women’s Crisis Center. The...
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journal article: Responding to Students with PTSD in Schools
Child Adolesc Psychiatr Clin N Am . 2012 January Responding to Students with PTSD in Schools Sheryl Kataoka, MD, MSHS, Audra Langley, PhD, Marleen Wong, PhD, Shilpa Baweja, MA, and Bradley Stein, MD, PhD The prevalence of trauma exposure among youth is a major public health concern, with a third of adolescents nationally reporting that they have been in a physical fight in the past twelve months and 9% having been threatened or injured with a weapon on school property. Studies have...
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Lawmaker Pushing Mental Health Reform: It's 'More Needed Than Ever' [khn.org]
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...
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Overview of the 2016 Project on Behavioral Health Services For Children and Youth in California [dhcs.ca.gov]
The California Behavioral Health Planning Council (Council) is under federal and state mandate to advocate on behalf of adults with severe mental illness and children with severe emotional disturbance and their families. The Council is also statutorily required to advise the Legislature on behavioral health issues, policies and priorities in California. The Council advocates for an accountable system of seamless, responsive services that are strength-based, consumer and family member driven,...
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Registration Open - 2019 Families and Fathers Conference Early Rate and Hotel Discount Closing
In 48 days, we open our 20th convening of a powerful conference focused on strengthening families, improving outcomes for children, and strategies to engage families: the 20th Annual Families and Fathers Conference hosted by Fathers and Families Coalition of America. Sponsorships allow the extended early rate for an exceptional experience in Los Angeles, California, from March 4th (pre-conference institute credential) through the main conference dates of March 5th - 7th. Please share this...
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Report reveals how foster care, juvenile and adult justice systems traumatize youth, calls for policy shifts
YWFC sponsored Sister Warriors meeting When she was 15 years old, Lucero Herrera was put in a rehab program by San Francisco’s Juvenile Court because she was getting drunk regularly. And in doing so, the court failed to explore the root of her drinking. Had they done so, she said, they would have found that anger and trauma were lurking underneath, driven by her ACEs: adverse childhood experiences. Lucero Herrera "Why did they put me in a drug program when I had an anger problem? I went...
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Coronavirus and seniors: How life will change when Bay Area shelter-in-place restrictions are lifted [sfchronicle.com]
By Aidin Vaziri, San Francisco Chronicle, April 29, 2020 We already know life will not return to normal when Bay Area shelter-in-place restrictions are lifted. But for seniors , and other people who are at higher risk for developing more serious complications from COVID-19 illness, things will be especially challenging. “It is going to be a new way of life,” said Dr. Nima Afshar , who specializes in emergency and internal medicine at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center. “It...
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CYW releases "Children Can Thrive: A Vision for California's Response to ACEs"
The Center for Youth Wellness released a new report “Children Can Thrive: A Vision for California’s Response to ACEs”. This report is a follow up to the November 2014 Children Can Thrive Summit. Based on the ideas shared by participants at the Children Can Thrive summit, the report sets forth the beginnings of a multi-sector, multi-strategy approach to respond effectively to the impacts of ACEs in California. The report is attached to...
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California still suspending black and Native American students way more than whites [sacbee.com]
California has made strides to reduce student suspensions for minor classroom disruptions, but a new study concludes the state still has not gone far enough — and in some districts, pernicious disparities remain. Statewide, school districts in 2017 issued some 381,845 suspensions that resulted in an estimated 763,690 missed days of instruction, according to a new report by the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at UCLA. The number of days lost for minor infractions categorized as “defiance and...
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CDC: Childhood Trauma Is A Public Health Issue And We Can Do More To Prevent It
Yesterday, NPR published the following story: CLICK HERE "Childhood trauma causes serious health repercussions throughout life and is a public health issue that calls for concerted prevention efforts. That's the takeaway of a report published Tuesday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Experiencing traumatic things as a child puts you at risk for lifelong health effects, according to a body of research. The CDC's new report confirms this, finding that Americans who had...
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How collaboration helps clinic in San Mateo County, CA, tackle ACEs in children
Dr. Elizabeth Grady is a pediatrician at the South San Francisco Clinic, a community clinic of San Mateo Medical Center. She and Susana Flores , a senior public health nurse with San Mateo County Health, spoke with me about how the clinic and other health agencies in San Mateo have been able to craft ways to work together to prevent and heal toxic stress in children. Grady also talked about how she and Flores have been working with the Resilient Beginnings Collaborative (RBC), a group of...
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Jerry Brown limits prosecution of minors to ‘work toward a more just system’ [sacbee.com]
Gov. Jerry Brown on Sunday signed a pair of measures that limits when and how young people can be prosecuted for criminal charges. It continues Brown’s efforts, in his final term, to undo many of the tough sentencing policies he supported during his first stint as governor, which contributed to an unconstitutionally overcrowded prison system in California. Senate Bill 439 establishes 12 years as the minimum age for prosecution in juvenile court , unless a minor younger than 12 has committed...
Comment
Re: Gov. Newsom proposing to expand services for babies and toddlers [edsource.org]
I'd be grateful if anyone knows who on the Governor's staff is heading this ACE-related project, and help get the attached document into that person's hands.
Comment
Re: NEW BRIEF! Screening for Trauma Birth to 5
The attached article may fit in somewhere here. Please feel free tp pass it on.
Comment
Re: To Truly Transform Health in California, We Need to Invest in Healthy Communities [calhealthreport.org]
If the health care of our State is to be improved, one key step will be to improve the basis for understanding a person's health status. The most important component of that understanding comes from a comprehensive medical history from each patient. Obtained by conventional techniques, this is very time consuming, hence expensive, hence usually carried out superficially. Because of that, I would like to propose that there be created the California Health Index, a uniquely comprehensive...
Comment
Re: HIGHLIGHT!! Live webinar: CA surgeon general and DHCS medical director discuss ACE screening training
The effect of the above-described approach is summarized this paragraph from the attached article. "Another example of the research potential of this approach to preventive medicine was demonstrated by an analysis of 135,000 consecutive adults going through Health Appraisal in a 2.5-year period. ACE Study questions relating to traumatic life experiences in childhood had recently been added to the comprehensive medical history questionnaire that patients filled out at home. A major data...
Comment
Re: 5 Things to Know as California Starts Screening Children for Toxic Stress [californiahealthline.org]
I am new to this community. I completely understand the worry for this overloading the current system. We are beginning a full fledged systems change for medical care, because the research demands that we pay attention to what we now know about ACEs, serious health risks and an attack on resiliency. We need everyone to be versed in trauma and resilience language and actions. My passion is in understanding and maximizing resiliency across the lifespan. I think Dr. Finkelfor is right, there...