Tagged With "California Health Care Foundation"
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A Quarter Century On, Schools in California Now a Welcoming Place for Undocumented Students [edsource.org]
By Louis Freedberg, EdSource, November 8, 2019 Exactly a quarter of a century ago, on Nov. 8, 1994, Californians went to the polls to vote on Proposition 187, an initiative to expel undocumented students from its public schools and universities. That was despite a Supreme Court ruling a dozen years earlier that schools were required to educate all students regardless of their immigration status. Among its many provisions was that schools officials would have had to identify all undocumented...
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A Quest To Understand Adoption, Attachment, and Suicide
Join me and my guests, John Brooks and Nancy Newton Verrier, on “About Health.” Monday March 7th from 2-3PM on KPFA.org or 94.1FM. We will discuss, The Girl Behind the Door, A Father’s Quest to Understand His Daughter’s Suicide , by John Brooks. It provides a profound look into adoption, teenage suicide, and attachment issues. When John and Erika’s daughter Casey jumped off of the Golden Gate Bridge in 2008, John began to unravel a heartbreaking truth—Casey had been in pain since birth,...
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A Smarter System: Addressing Social Determinants of Health as a Cost-Saving Measure
by Edward Schor, MD, Senior Vice President at the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health The importance of social factors in determining individuals’ health status and their use of health care services has been receiving increasing attention. A recent report from the Bipartisan Policy Center suggests that opportunities to control health care costs reside primarily in addressing patients’ social and behavioral care needs. The report lays out the arguments for integrating social and...
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A Snapshot of California's Working Poor [ppic.org]
By Sarah Bohn, Caroline Danielson, Tess Thorman, and Vicki Hsieh, Public Policy Institute of California, October 2019 Employment does not eliminate poverty. Struggling workers in California can face many barriers to exiting poverty, including low wages, a high cost of living, and a changing job market. Minimum wage increases may be helping some of the working poor, but exiting poverty is complex. Additional policy responses are critical. Employment hours Policies that promote more...
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A South LA high school's journey back from the brink (edsource.org)
Claudia Rojas had a regular routine she followed most days during the 2012-13 school year, the year she took a job as one of three principals at the newly opened Augustus F. Hawkins High School in South Los Angeles. She would get up in the morning, have breakfast and then cry her way to work. Hawkins, as it’s known, is a part of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Pilot School program , which was established in 2007 to relieve overcrowding at Belmont High School in central L.A. The...
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A Special Opportunity to Invest in Our Communities with Proposition 64 Expenditures
California’s Proposition 64 (2016 marijuana legalization) presents a special opportunity to invest in community-based substance use education, prevention, and more for children, youth, families, and the communities they live in. There is a critical need to focus these efforts on effective strategies that address the underlying causes and conditions of substance use, including adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), adverse community environments, toxic stress , trauma and lack of proactive...
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A Trauma-Informed Approach to Supporting Families Impacted by Addiction
RFQ ANNOUNCEMENT: Celebrating Families! California Expansion Project Update: Due to the expanding ACEs response in California, and subsequent interest in Celebrating Families! we are extending the due date for proposals to May 24 th. Invitation to Expand Celebrating Families!™ Statewide The California State Office of Child Abuse Prevention (OCAP) recognizing the effectiveness of Celebrating Families! (CF!), has awarded Prevention Partnership International (PPI) a $100,000, 2-year challenge...
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AAPI Women Lead Community Care Series
COMMUNITY CARE SERIES An online series of workshops, interviews, exercises that are led by our community leaders to help us understand what is going on with the pandemic and what we can do (including health and wellness lessons), specifically as Asian and Pacific Islander communities. [Click here to access series of videos] Recent episodes: 10-min grounding meditation to support you though COVID-19 Dr. Jennifer Mullan from @DecolonizingTherapy Eastern Medicine's Response to COVID-19 with...
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Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Unveils Bureau of Children’s Justice
LOS ANGELES On February 12, 2015, Attorney General Kamala D. Harris unveiled the Bureau of Childrens Justice within the California Department of Justice that will work to ensure all of Californias children are on track to meet...
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August 29 Children’s Advocacy Institute Hosts Roundtable Discussions
The Children's Advocates Roundtable , established in 1990, is an affiliation of over 200 statewide and regional children's policy organizations, representing over twenty issue disciplines (e.g., child abuse prevention, child care, education, poverty, housing, juvenile justice). The Roundtable is convened by the Children's Advocacy Institute (CAI), and is committed to providing a setting where statewide and locally-based children's advocates gather with advocates from other children's issue...
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AVA Regional Academies: Building Trauma-Informed, Resilient, and Healthy Communities
Last week, I was fortunate to be a part of a small group of professionals in San Diego to attend the Academy on Violence and Abuse preconference session for the 30 th Annual San Diego International Conference on Child and Family Maltreatment. The conference draws over 1,800 professionals in the maltreatment field from around the world each year. The session, titled: Building Trauma Informed, Resilience, and Healthy Communities: Regional, National, and Global Perspectives , had an ambitious...
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Avoiding The ER: Paramedics Link Patients To Local Mental Health Treatment [CA Healthline and USA Today]
For Kelly Kjelstrom, plugging the gaps in mental health care can mean something as simple as a late-night taco and a friendly chat with a patient. Kjelstrom, 45, is a community paramedic in Modesto, California. Part of his job is to help psychiatric patients avoid the emergency room, where they can get “boarded” for days, until they are released or a bed opens up at an inpatient facility. When a 911 call involves a potential mental health crisis, specially trained paramedics like Kjelstrom...
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Back to Our Roots: Catalyzing Community Action for Mental Health and Wellbeing [preventioninstitute.org]
Mental health is at the heart many of the challenges we face, including trauma and adverse childhood experiences, social isolation, institutionalized bias and discrimination, and ‘diseases of despair’ that manifest in depression, suicide, and substance misuse. Addressing social determinants of health is key to helping communities navigate adversity, heal, and flourish. PI’s new report, Back to Our Roots: Catalyzing Community Action for Mental Health and Wellbeing , illustrates how improving...
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Bad childhood experiences can make us unhealthy [Sacbee.com]
Vincent Felitti, a Kaiser Permanente physician in San Diego in the 1990s, had a radical idea. Instead of just asking patients about their symptoms, what would happen if doctors asked them about their childhoods? His hypothesis, built on a hunch informed by experience, was that childhood trauma was connected to poor health later in life. Felitti helped lead an exhaustive study of 17,000 patients that seemed to confirm his theory. That was in 1998. But for years Felitti’s study and his...
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Bankruptcy and privatization will not lead us to recovery. [preventioninstitute.org]
By Rachel A. Davis, Prevention Institute, May 7, 2020 My father, a farmer, called me a few weeks ago to share that he had just stopped picking mid-harvest because of disruptions in produce distribution lines due to the coronavirus pandemic. I felt concerned for my family, for other farmers, and for families across the country that were struggling to feed their children. In the meantime, my sister, the ranch manager, spent days personally handpicking and boxing 1,600 pounds of the unpicked...
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Bay Area Doctors Target Health Consequences of Childhood Trauma [sfchronicle.com]
By Erin Allday, San Francisco Chronicle, January 5, 2020 A screening tool developed by Bay Area pediatricians to identify adverse childhood experiences, ranging from homelessness and food insecurity to physical and sexual abuse, will now help doctors statewide address trauma affecting patients’ health. The California Department of Health Care Services approved the tool — called PEARLS, for Pediatric ACEs and Related Life-Events Screener — last month. As of Jan. 1, its use is covered by...
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Bay Area Human Rights Training on Immigrant Health
HealthRight International's Human Rights Clinic (HRC) will be holding a training for new volunteers on Saturday, June 3, 2017 from 9:00 am to 3:30 pm at UC Hastings College of Law (198 McAllister Street, San Francisco, CA 94102). This training, in particular, will have a special focus on evaluating minors (children and adolescents) as well as adult survivors. T he training will provide clinicians with a background on the experiences of immigrants fleeing abuse (including unaccompanied minors...
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Bay Area 'shelter in place' expected: Only essential businesses open in 6 counties with 6.7million people until April 7 [sfchronicle.com]
By Erin Allday, San Francisco Chronicle, March 16, 2020 Six Bay Area counties are expected to announce a “shelter in place” order for all residents on Monday, directing everyone to stay inside their homes and away from others as much as possible for the next three weeks as public health officials desperately try to curb the rapid spread of coronavirus across the region. County authorities were expected to announce the move at 1 p.m. and gave a draft of the order to media outlets to prepare.
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BCSD wellness centers provide free services for students as they head back to school [Bakersfield.com]
By Ema Sasic August 7, 2019 The first day of school is just a few days away and school supplies are not the only items parents need to cross off their back-to-school checklist. Bakersfield City School District's four wellness centers are encouraging parents to stop by to make sure their children have all their required immunizations before the first day of school and are ready for the upcoming school year. The district has recently opened school wellness centers to promote physical, mental...
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ACEs Science Champions Series: Because of Andres Perez, 10,000+ Latinx parents in Northern California embrace trauma-informed parenting
Andres Perez immigrated to San Jose, Calif., from Mexico in 1990. He was 24 years old, undocumented, knew little English, lacked job skills, and had a pregnant wife to support. He hit the ground running by completing an ESL program in San Jose City College, and, while working days at any job he could find, at night he earned an associate of science degree with specialization in electronics and computers in 2002. Fortunately for thousands of Latinx parents and their children, he never worked...
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Become an Echo Trauma Trainer
I wanted to tell you about our SUMMER ACADEMY - TRAIN THE TRAINER - your opportunity to become a facilitator for Echo's Trauma & Resilience training. In June, we will be holding a 3-day intensive to train future Echo trainers and others who want to become facilitators in our 6-hour Trauma & Resilience training. Covering the basics, such as the Adverse Childhood Experience Study, the triune brain, the impact of trauma on the nervous system, trauma responses and trauma-informed care,...
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Behavioral Health Integration in Medi-Cal: A Blueprint for California (California Health Care Foundation)
People with behavioral health conditions — that is, mental illness and/or substance use disorder — often experience poor health overall. They are less likely to receive preventive care, have higher rates of major chronic illnesses, and often experience a lower quality of care for their physical health needs. Those with a diagnosis of serious mental illness or substance use disorder die on average over 20 years earlier than those without such a diagnosis, often from preventable physical...
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Being homeless during coronavirus adds hardship for California college student [edsource.org]
By Marisa Martinez, EdSource, April 17, 2020 Mornings for student Cristina Zetino at California State University, Los Angeles are as normal as they can be. Before she packs up her things, she checks in with the family that offers her an occasional place to lay her head for the night. The self-described “couch surfer” alternates between three different homes throughout the week while juggling work and classes. Always in her possession are three bags: “One bag for school, one for clothes and a...
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Beyond Paper Tigers is Back!
Back for the second year, Beyond Paper Tigers conference will take place June 28th and 29th in Walla Walla, WA. Featuring Dr. Ken Ginsburg from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia as the keynote speaker, BPT builds on the story of one community and how they've learned that embracing trauma-informed care and implementing ACEs science truly takes a village. Operationalizing the latest in brain science, BPT will provide concrete strategies for intervention with youth, families, and communities...
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Bi-partisan trauma resolution introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives
A bi-partisan resolution “Recognizing the importance and effectiveness of trauma-informed care” ( H. Res. 443 ) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives on July 13 by Mike Gallagher (R-WI) and co-sponsor Danny K. Davis (D-IL). The impetus for the resolution resides with the First Lady of Wisconsin, Tonette Tonette Walker Walker, who has taken a strong leadership role in advancing trauma-informed policy and practice statewide through Fostering Futures and of late with the new...
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Bill Would Boost Mental Health Counselors At CSUs (capradio.org)
Mental health advocates say anxiety is up among college students dealing with things like debt and the cost of living. That's prompted a push for more counselors at California State University campuses. CSU campuses would be required to have at least one full time mental health counselor for every 1,000 students, under legislation passed by the Senate Education Committee. Few campuses meet that standard now. Jared Giarrusso is with the California State Student Association. He says students...
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Bill would give protected school leave to teen parents (k-12daily.com)
(Calif.) With an important legislative deadline quickly approaching, Senate education committee members passed about a dozen bills last week targeting topics including time off for teen parents, statewide assessment options and charter school transparency. AB 1951 would require the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to approve a nationally recognized high school assessment–such as the SAT or ACT–that districts can administer to students instead of the grade 11 California Assessment...
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Bill would require more mental health screening for some state convicts (pressdemocrat.com)
A state legislative bill that would require judges in certain cases to consider a defendant’s mental health during sentencing was approved by the Legislature this week and is headed for Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk. The bill, AB 154, would require judges to make a recommendation to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that a convicted felon receive a mental health evaluation if mental illness played a role in the crime. North Coast Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-San Rafael,...
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Bipartisan trauma resolution passes the House unanimously
In the late afternoon on Feb. 26, the House of Representatives unanimously passed H. Res. 443 , a resolution recognizing the importance and effectiveness of trauma-informed care and calling for a national trauma awareness month and trauma-informed awareness day. The impetus for the resolution resides with the First Lady of Wisconsin, Tonette Walker, who has taken a strong leadership role in advancing trauma-informed policy and practice statewide through Fostering Futures , and has elevated...
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Black People Disproportionately Homeless in California [calmatters.org]
By Kate Cimini, Cal Matters, October 5, 2019 Just a few years ago, Yolanda Harraway was living in a tent on the streets of Chinatown in Salinas, an agricultural hub struggling with a growing homeless community. Harraway’s slide into homelessness began when her son was taken from her custody by Child Protective Services. She struggled with addiction and had several felonies on her record, which cut her off from various state and government-funded housing options. She also had a hard time...
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Black-White Achievement Gaps Go Hand in Hand With Discipline Disparities [edweek.org]
By Sarah D. Sparks, Education Week, October 16, 2019 Gaps between black and white students in school suspension rates and academic achievement may be two sides of the same coin, according to a massive new national study. The study, based on data from more than 2,000 school districts, finds the two racial disparities are tightly intertwined, compounding challenges for students of color and the educators trying to support them. “These disparities are two things the districts think and care a...
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Black Youth Experience Highest Felony Arrest Rate in California
Kidsdata.org recently shared their interactive online platform for data related to felony arrests for children and youth under age 18. Youth who have contact with the juvenile justice system are at increased risk for a number of negative long-term outcomes when compared with the general youth population. For example, an estimated 30 percent of the youth who enter California's juvenile justice system have mental health issues and those who have been held in detention have higher rates of...
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Black youth experience highest felony arrest rate in California [Kidsdata.org]
The felony arrest rate among African American/black youth in 2015 was substantially higher than other racial and ethnic groups in California. At 24 arrests per 1,000 youth, the rate among this group is about 8 times higher than the felony arrest rate among white youth. Encouragingly, nearly all of the 21 counties with data have seen improvements in felony arrest rates for African American/black youth over the past 17 years. Since 1998, San Francisco County saw a particularly sharp, though...
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Blacks, Latinos, Women Found Less Likely To Get The Mental Health Care They Need [californiahealthline.org]
Black Californians are more likely to experience mental health problems than other ethnic groups, and they are less likely to get the care they need, according to a study released Tuesday. The study, by Santa Monica-based Rand Corp., shows a connection between untreated mental health problems and multiple absences from work, which can take an economic toll on individuals and families in the form of lost pay and even lost jobs. That dynamic disproportionately affects communities of color.
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Board of State and Community Corrections Awards $96m In Prop 47 Grants
SACRAMENTO (June 13, 2019) – The Board of State and Community Corrections today approved grant awards from a voter initiative that reduces from felonies to misdemeanors certain low-level crimes and directs state savings to programs primarily focused on mental health and substance-use disorder treatment. It is the second round of Proposition 47 funding approved by the Board, to which voters allocated the bulk of the state savings for rehabilitative grants targeting Prop 47-impacted...
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Borderline Task Force Identifies Steps Aimed at Stopping Mass Shootings [vcstar.com]
By Kathleen Wilson, Ventura County Star, November 5, 2019 A Ventura County task force formed to prevent mass shootings has identified changes to be made in safety measures and mental health treatment in the wake of the Borderline attack. Possibilities include the opening of outpatient psychiatric centers by both private and public hospitals and a pilot program to streamline the process for seizing guns from people legally barred from having them. Officials also are looking at an awareness...
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Breakdown: California’s mental health system, explained (calmatters.org)
"Mental health advocates have long described California’s fragmented mental health system with words like “struggling” and “broken.” Evidence of its consequences can be found in our jails and prisons, our hospitals and clinics, our schools and colleges. The problem touches those living in comfortable middle class suburbs, remote rural towns, and on the streets of the state’s biggest cities." "Not only do a sixth of Californians experience some mental illness, but 1 out of every 24 have a...
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Breaking the Silence on Early Child Care and Education Costs: A Values-Based Budget for Children, Parents, and Teachers in California
By Elise Gould, Marcy Whitebook, Zane Mokhiber, and Lea J.E. Austin, Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, July 23, 2019. What this report finds: California’s child early care and education (ECE) system is underfunded, and California policymakers have not been willing to acknowledge the true cost of creating a comprehensive ECE system. Proposals for ECE reform have focused primarily on improving access and affordability for families but have ignored the elephant in the room: Early...
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Breathing ‘A Chore’: California Wildfires Threaten The Health Of Young And Old (californiahealthline.org)
“We are in a situation now where the wildfire season doesn’t really have its normal beginning or end,” said Lori Kobza, spokeswoman for the Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District. The 629,000 acres burned this year follows large swaths torched last year in Ventura, Santa Barbara, Napa and Sonoma counties, causing dozens of deaths, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Many scientists attribute the more frequent and ferocious fires in the...
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BRFSS ACEs Modules in California
In 2008 California was the first and only state to include the ACEs module in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey. The results were reported at a BRFSS conference in 2009. The state also included ACEs modules in...
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Briefing in Support of ACEs Legislation - WATCH LIVE (Today!)
MARC Advisor Wendy Ellis is moderating a Congressional Briefing today on the need to address childhood trauma. Co-hosts: Building Community Resilience, Rep. Danny Davis (IL-7), and the Congressional Foster Care Youth Caucus. Where and When: Wednesday, July 26, 10:30-11:30am (Eastern) HVC 200, Congressional Visitor's Center Watch a livestream of the briefing here . Read Wendy's original post on main ACEs Connection site here: ...
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Briefs on current adverse childhood experiences in children in selected California cities
Attached are briefs on current ACEs in children in selected California cities, with comparison with state and county data. They were prepared by the Data Resource Center for Child and Adolescent Health, a project of the Child and Adolescent...
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Brown Signs Law to Ease Licensing Path for Relatives, Vetoes Foster Care Mobile Response Plan [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
As California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) prepares to leave office at the end of the year, the last round of child welfare legislation under his watch includes a new law to ease the path of relative caregivers under the Continuum of Care Reform (CCR), the major child welfare initiative developed during his time as governor. The Continuum of Care Reform is designed to reduce the state’s reliance on congregate care by placing more foster children with families, including more with relative...
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Budget Breakdown: Money For Diversion, Probation, Reform, And More [witnessla.com]
By Taylor Walker, Witness LA, January 14, 2020 On Friday, California Governor Gavin Newsom unveiled his plans for the 2020-2021 budget, a $222.2 billion proposal that features important changes to probation and pretrial diversion, jail reforms, and a potential prison closure, among other big changes in the world of justice. Below, WitnessLA has compiled some of the highlights from the governor’s proposed criminal justice spending. Based on Newsom’s January budget proposal, spending for the...
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Budget Hearing on Trauma Screening (Assembly Bill 340)
Our state is leading the way in addressing Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)! This year, California will become the first state to require and pay for ACEs screening for children under the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment program, per recommendations from the Trauma Screening Advisory Workgroup created as part of Assembly Bill 340 . The Budget Subcommittee on Health and Human Services hearing on Monday, February 25th will discuss the recommendations from the AB 340...
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Budget Recommendations for ACEs Screening (AB340) Implementation
ACEs Screening (AB340) implementation recommendations presented to the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on February 25
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Building Bridges to Resilience in Santa Barbara County
The full moon was setting and the sun was rising as organizers from KIDS Network, Children & Family Resource Services, Casa Pacifica, and the Department of Behavioral Wellness began setting up the 2019 BRIDGES TO RESILIENCE Conference on October 14 th at the beautiful Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort. The stately halls and ballrooms were a flurry of activity as staff prepared to receive over 350 community members who work with children, youth and families in Santa Barbara County.
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Building Children’s Resilience
Genentech is excited to launch a new philanthropic initiative, The Resilience Effect , to address childhood adversity and its long-term effects on health. For more than 40 years, our company has pursued groundbreaking science to improve the lives of people facing serious and life-threatening diseases. That’s why, when we learned about the emerging science behind the effects of toxic stress and the connection between early adverse childhood experiences and diseases later in life, we knew we...
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Building Community Health
Dr Sandy Escobar is transforming healthcare in East Palo Alto, one family at a time.
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Building Resilience Through Understanding Substance Use Disorders and Their Impacts on Others
The reach of substance use disorders in America is far more significant than people think. 21+ million Americans struggle with substance use disorders. Their substance use and addiction-related behaviors impact 100 million more Americans. These are the moms, dads, husbands, wives, children, brothers, sisters, grandchildren.... Together, these two groups represents more than one-third of the American population!