Tagged With "California Children's Report Card"
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Early Childhood Is Critical to Health Equity [rwjf.org]
The first few years of life are crucial in establishing a child’s path toward—or away from—health and well-being across the entire lifespan. This report, produced in partnership with the University of California, San Francisco, examines some of the barriers to health equity that begin early in life, and promising strategies for overcoming them. Key Findings Poverty limits childrens’ and families’ options for healthy living conditions. Poverty can limit where children live, and can lead to...
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Economist outlines reforms to improve access to affordable, high quality child care [medicalxpress.com]
For families in the U.S., the costs of high-quality child care are exorbitant, especially for those with children under age five. A new policy proposal, "Public Investments in Child Care," by Dartmouth Associate Professor of Economics Elizabeth Cascio, finds that current federal child care tax policies are not benefiting the families most burdened by child care costs. Therefore, Cascio outlines a new policy that could replace the current federal child care tax policies. The research examines...
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Essentials for Childhood Case Study: Collective Impact through Strategic Opportunities
The California Department of Public Health, Safe and Active Communities (CDPH/SACB), Steve Wirtz and Marissa Abbott co-authored a case study showcasing the methodology, successes, and opportunities for improvement from the 2013-2018 Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative. Read more about the lessons learned and how the EfC Initiative will move forward from 2019 and beyond by clicking the attachment below.
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Essentials for Childhood Framework
From the CDC’s Injury Prevention & Control, Division of Violence Prevention: "Safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments are essential to prevent child abuse and neglect and to assure all children reach their full potential. The Essentials for Childhood Framework proposes strategies communities can consider to promote relationships and environments that help children grow up to be healthy and productive citizens so that they, in turn, can build stronger and safer families and...
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Essentials for Childhood Initiative 5/13 Webinar: Health Equity and COVID-19: Opportunities to Improve Child Wellbeing through Policy
The Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative invites your participation in a webinar entitled, “Health Equity and COVID-19: Opportunities to Improve Child Wellbeing through Policy” taking place on Wednesday, May 13, 2020 from 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM for a special guest presentation with Dr. Flojaune Cofer, Senior Director of Policy with the All Children Thrive (ACT) California project. This interactive webinar will examine what success could look like in addressing COVID-19 by describing equity...
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Essentials for Childhood Initiative Membership Re-Convenes!
The California Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative , a collaborative project between the California Department of Public Health, Safe and Active Communities Branch (CDPH/SACB) and the California Department of Social Services, Office of Child Abuse Prevention (CDSS/OCAP) has received funding to continue efforts through August of 2023 to decrease child maltreatment risk factors and increase protective factors to provide safe, stable, nurturing relationships, and environments (SSNR&E)...
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Essentials for Childhood Initiative: October 30th, 2019 Convening Summary Document
The California Department of Public Health, Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB), (formerly the Safe and Active Communities Branch) and the California Department of Social Services, Office of Child Abuse Prevention (CDSS/OCAP), co-hosted an Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative convening on Wednesday, October 30, 2019. This event, entitled “Defining Goals and Strategies to Achieve Child Wellbeing,” took place at the California Endowment in Sacramento from 8:30 AM - 3:30 PM...
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Fact Sheet on Resilience and Child Traumatic Stress from National Child Traumatic Stress Network
This four-page fact sheet provides questions and answers about child traumatic stress and resilience, which is the ability of a child to recover and show early and effective adaptation following a potentially traumatic event. Topics include what resilience looks like in children, what factors might enhance resilience in children after traumatic events, and some initial steps to enhance recovery during treatment or services.
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Federal funding opportunity primary prevention of abuse and neglect
The purpose of this FOA from the federal Administration on Children, Youth and Families - Children's Bureau is to fund cooperative agreements that support the development, implementation, and evaluation of primary prevention strategies to improve the safety, stability, and well-being of all families through a continuum of community-based services and supports. During the project period, grantees will address site-specific barriers and mobilize communities to prevent child maltreatment,...
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ACEs Science Champions Series: First 5 San Mateo County (CA) Forges Ahead with Trauma-Informed Initiative
Each year for the past 20 years, First 5 San Mateo County has spent nearly $7 million to help meet the needs of children from birth through age five, and support their families. In 1998, First 5 was established and funded in California by Proposition 10, which funneled tobacco tax dollars into transforming the early childhood system and guaranteeing better outcomes for all counties in the state. In January 2018, the First 5 San Mateo County started a planning committee based on incorporating...
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Five Million U.S. Children Have Had a Parent in Prison, Report Finds [PhilanthropyNewsDigest.org]
More than five million children under the age of 18 — approximately 7 percent of all children in the United States — have at least one parent who has been incarcerated, a report from Child Trends finds. ...
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Five Strategies for Engaging Family Partners [nichq.org]
Families have an unmatched impact on their child’s health, especially during the early years of life when children’s rapidly developing brains are laying the groundwork for their future health and wellbeing. To be the best advocates for their children, families need the right supports, whether they be access to public assistance programs like Medicaid and housing, opportunities to build a strong relationship with their child’s health provider, or resources that empower them to support their...
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Five Ways to Help Kids Manage Frustration [greatergood.berkeley.edu]
When parents hold their newborn infants, they naturally want what’s best for them. They want to protect them, nurture them, and give them all the opportunities to have a happy life. At the same time, however, children must learn to cope with frustrations and disappointments. Luckily, there are frustrations from the very beginning of life, such as when babies want a bottle and have to wait even a few minutes while you are preparing it. Later, as toddlers, they have to wait until they can get...
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Friendly Neighborhoods and Less Child Spanking May Reduce Likelihood of CPS Involvement, Study Says [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
There may be a relationship between the spanking of children, the type of neighborhood the children live in and the likelihood of a report of abuse or neglect to Child Protective Services (CPS), according to a new study published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect. The study looked at a sample of 2,267 children drawn from Princeton University’s Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study . Researchers at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University compared that group...
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From Trauma-Informed to Asset-Informed Care in Early Childhood [brookings.edu]
By Ellen Galinsky, Brookings Institute, October 23, 2019 The focus on “toxic stress,” ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences), and trauma-informed care have been game-changers in the field of early childhood development. They have helped us recognize the symptoms of trauma, provide appropriate assistance to children, and understand that prolonged adversity in the absence of nurturing relationships can derail a child’s healthy development. Just look at the media’s and the public’s reaction to...
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Futures Without Violence - Safe, Healthy, and Ready to Learn
Interesting report from Futures Without Violence: Safe, Healthy, and Ready to Learn: Policy Recommendations to Ensure Children Thrive in Supportive Communities Free from Violence and Trauma
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Handling Your Child’s Challenging Behaviors at Every Age: New Parenting Guide from Yolo Child Abuse Prevention Council/Yolo County Children's Alliance
The Yolo County Child Abuse Prevention Council (CAPC) and Yolo County Children’s Alliance (YCCA) are excited to share our new parenting guide: Handling Your Child’s Challenging Behaviors at Every Age. This resource for parents and caregivers provides positive discipline tips and resources to handle challenging behaviors in babies, toddlers, preschoolers, school-age children, and teenagers. Each age group page has: tips on how parents can connect with their child, some common challenging...
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Health care for 7 in 10 CA children funded by Medicaid or CHIP
Proposed cuts and changes to public health insurance programs would have a disproportionate effect on California kids compared with kids in the nation as a whole.
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Helping Children Heal: Promising Community Programs and Policy Solutions
Ad vo c ate s and policymakers in public health are paying more attention to the impact of exposure early in life to trauma or chronic adversity, since it is now known to impair brain development in children and have rippling effects on c aregivers...
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Hidden Crisis Report - ACEs in CA
Attached find the full report from Center for Youth Wellness (CYW) d ata report of ACEs in California, prepared in partnership with Public Health Institute (November 6, 2014).
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Higher Minimum Wages Are Good for Newborn Health [CityLab.com]
In the U.S., the debate around the minimum wage does not lack controversy, but it does lack up-to-date research. Academic studies on the effects of raising hourly pay—especially to $15, which has become something of a magic number for progressive cities and states—have not kept pace with the whirlwind movement . And relatively little research has focused on the non-economic impacts of such significant wage bumps: for example, how they affect the health of infants. This is no arbitrary...
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How do you tell the story of a huge early childhood program over time? [centerforhealthjournalism.org]
Thanks — for nothing, Mr. Reiner. When I started my reporting on the 20th anniversary of California’s Proposition 10 — now known as First 5 — I fully expected to have filmmaker Rob Reiner’s quotations and retrospective as a central piece of the package . After all, he was the sponsor of the ballot measure that created the tobacco tax-funded system for programs serving young children from birth to age 5. And, he welcomed me into his Beverly Hills office for an interview when the measure was...
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"How Neglect and Abuse Change Children’s Brains — and Their Futures" by Katharine Gammon [centerforhealthjournalism.org]
Childhood adversity comes in different forms. When Katie McLaughlin, director of the Stress and Development Lab at the University of Washington, talks about stress and early childhood development, she brings up two different fictional children: One who faces the constant threat of violence at home, and one who is neglected. [For more of this article by Katharine Gammon, visit: https://www.centerforhealthjou...amp;utm_medium=email ]
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How Work-Life Balance Helps a Baby’s Brain [LinkedIn.com]
Most of us understand that a baby’s earliest months and years are the most critical for brain development. But did you know that a baby’s relationships with parents and caregivers actually stimulate that process? That’s right: An infant’s connections to nurturing, trusted adults help build the foundation for emotions, language, behavior, memory, physical movement – you name it. Right from the start, as parents, we need to bond with these brand-new little people, teach them how the world...
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Infancy and early childhood matter so much because of attachment (theconversation.com)
We are born to connect. As human beings we are relational and we need biological, emotional and psychological connection with others . Attachment is the relational dance that parents and babies share together. You can think of this when you see a baby look at their parent and they catch each other’s eyes in a wonderful gaze: the parent smiles and the baby smiles and then the parent kisses and the baby coos. Or, when an infant cries to tell their parent they are hungry, and the parent picks...
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Infants and Toddlers Need Strong Parents [clasp.org]
Parents play the most active and significant role in their baby’s healthy development. Young children learn and grow in strong families where parents are able to successfully face the challenge of nurturing their children. During the first three years of life, experiences are shaping a child’s brain and providing the foundation for later development. Parenting support services, which range from informational resources to more intensive interventions, can help improve parenting skills,...
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Interactive: Reducing Child Poverty in California [ppic.org]
This interactive tool allows you to explore how changes to housing costs, minimum wage, and the social safety net could affect child poverty statewide and in your county. We find lower housing costs and minimum wage increases could lower child poverty substantially—while helping Californians across the income spectrum. And though investments in California’s safety net would need to draw from the state budget, these approaches could also reduce child poverty considerably—while concentrating...
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January California Essentials for Childhood Newsletter
California Essentials for Childhood has just released its second newsletter. The full newsletter can be found attached. Check it out!
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Journal Article: “Secondary Traumatic Stress and Burnout Among Refugee Resettlement Workers: The Role of Coping and Emotional Intelligence.”
An article published in Journal of Traumatic Stress (Akinsulure‐Smith, A. M., Espinosa, A., Chu, T., and Hallock, R., 2018, 202–212, (https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.22279), promotes an enhanced understanding of the impact of refugee resettlement work on refugee resettlement workers by examining the prevalence rates of toxic mental health and occupational outcomes, such as secondary traumatic stress and burnout, among a sample of 210 refugee resettlement workers at six refugee resettlement...
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July California Essentials for Childhood Newsletter
California Essentials for Childhood has just released its fifth newsletter. The full newsletter can be found attached. Check it out!
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Key Ingredients for Successful Trauma-Informed Care Implementation [CHCS.org]
As the connection between exposure to trauma and long-term health conditions becomes clear, the health care sector is beginning to focus on how to best care for patients with a history of trauma. For many people, trauma may increase their risk of serious health issues leading to poor health outcomes and higher medical and social service costs. Health care providers can address patients’ traumatic experiences and their associated health effects by implementing trauma-informed approaches to...
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Know Your Rights: Paid Leave for Workers Impacted by COVID-19
From California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, March 23, 2020 As Californians are urged to stay home to help prevent the spread of COVID-19, workers across the state and their families are feeling the impact on their jobs and income, making the need for paid leave more apparent than ever. Join the California Work & Family Coalition, Legal Aid at Work, and the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence for short web-conferences addressing the access to paid leave and learning...
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Learning Series: Policy Approaches to Addressing Childhood Adversity - FREE Webinar, January 10, 10am PT
Please join us for a three -part learning series hosted by the California Campaign to Counter Childhood Adversity ( 4CAkids.org ) and ACEs Connection Network ( acesconnection.com ). Stay tuned for details on signing up for the webinars. We'll hear from states that are making great strides towards adopting trauma-informed policies and practices. Three-Part Learning Series: Webinar 1: National Landscape and State Level Efforts to Address Childhood Adversity Date: January 10th, 10AM PST...
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Legislation Signals Growing Support for Significance of Trauma Indicators
by David Gorn, California Healthline Sacramento Bureau Thursday, January 28, 2016 As a college student, Rob Bonta had a summer job working as a counselor for troubled kids. Now, two decades later he is bringing legislation to address some of the needs he saw then. "I worked with some of these kids as a counselor out of college, and I'd walk them home and hear some of these stories," Assembly member Bonta (D-Oakland) said. "Shootings they heard. Or shootings they witnessed the night before."...
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Live webcast by PPIC: Poverty and Opportunity in California (Oct. 15)
Poverty and Opportunity in California Tuesday, October 15, 2019 12:05 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. PT Register Here: https://www.ppic.org/news-and-events/events/webcast-registration/ About the program Despite strong economic growth, California continues to experience high rates of poverty. Backed by strong fiscal reserves, state policymakers have taken several steps to assist struggling families, but the goal of reducing poverty remains elusive. In this conversation, PPIC will share the latest data...
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Local Researchers' study shows: Trauma support for welfare recipients helps them earn more [medicalxpress.com]
People on welfare can earn more money in their jobs—and potentially leave the program—if the trauma they've faced since childhood is addressed, Drexel University research shows... "Financial education without the trauma-informed peer support had virtually no impact on improving income and in promoting health," said Mariana Chilton, PhD, director of the Center for Hunger-Free Communities and professor in the Dornsife School of Public Health. "Once the trauma-informed peer support was mixed...
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Love in the TIme of Coronavirus: Inequities and Supporting Children
This blog is re-posted from positiveexperience.org/blog/ Link there for associated resources, and for the other blogs in the series. Having safe, stable, and equitable environments to live, learn and play forms the second of the 4 Building Blocks of HOPE. Children need homes where they feel safe and secure and have their basic needs met. Children thrive in an environment that encourages curiosity and provides opportunities for learning to play and interact with other children. Today’s blog...
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Low pay for child care workers puts more than half at poverty level, study finds [edsource.org]
A majority of child care workers in California are paid so little they qualify for public assistance programs, according to a new report on the early education workforce. Fifty-eight percent of child care workers in California are on one or more public assistance programs, such as the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families , a federally funded program that helps pay for food, housing and other expenses, the report by UC Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Child Care Employment found. This is...
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Low wages undermine efforts to improve the quality of preschools, federal report says [EdSource.org]
Efforts in California and other states to raise the quality of child care and preschool programs are being undermined by the low wages that workers earn in jobs that now require more skills and education, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Education released Tuesday. In California, preschool teachers were paid an average salary of $31,720 in 2015, about half of what California kindergarten teachers earned that year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the report said.
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Make Time for Yourself—A Self-Care Guide for Busy Parents from Yolo County Children's Alliance
Yolo County Children’s Alliance is excited to share our new self-care resource for parents and caregivers for Child Abuse Prevention Month. Make Time for Yourself—A Self-Care Guide for Busy Parents talks about the importance of self-care and provides many ideas to try. The guide is available in English, Spanish, and Russian at www.yolokids.org/forfamilies/ . To help parents prioritize self-care, the guide divides specific self-care ideas into those that only take 5 minutes to do and those...
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Many Insured Children Lack Essential Health Care, Study Finds [NYTimes.com]
Margo Solomon has health insurance for herself and her four children. But actually getting treatment is another matter. Ms. Solomon, a 35-year-old mother from the Bronx, says she has struggled to find a doctor who accepts her insurance. And with three of her children coping with asthma, and one with more complicated medical problems, locating a specialist is even more challenging. And once in the door, she cannot afford the costs, including for deductibles and medications. “I feel like I am...
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Maryland Essentials for Childhood Hosts Advocacy Day at the State Capital
Maryland Essentials for Childhood, a statewide initiative educating policy makers and communities on the science of ACEs, developing brains, and how we can build resilience for children, families and communities in Maryland, is poised to meet with Maryland elected officials this coming Thursday, ,February 7th, 9-1 pm. We will educate legislators on the science and policies that reduce or mitigate ACEs and other childhood trauma. Key policies being considered by the General Assembly are:...
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May California Essentials for Childhood Newsletter
California Essentials for Childhood has just released its fourth newsletter. The full newsletter can be found attached. Check it out!
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Meet Dan Torres: Leading a Washington Effort to Ensure Safety, Stability and Nurturing for All Children
Dan Torres was traveling the country, working with state and regional agencies that were trying to improve outcomes for families involved in their child welfare systems. As an associate at the Center for the Study of Social Policy, his area of expertise was family support. While agencies and community groups were exerting incredible effort and changing the game for some, he couldn’t escape one question: How do we work more on preventing families from becoming involved in child welfare...
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Meet the Essentials for Childhood Initiative Team (Part 1/2)
Meet some of the Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative team members: Elena Costa – Elena Costa is the new Program Coordinator for the Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative with the Safe and Active Communities Branch (SACB) at the California Department of Public Health (CDPH). Elena joined the EfC Initiative in April of 2019 and is excited to work with the membership of the Initiative to promote Safe, Stable, Nurturing Relationships, and Environments (SSNR&E) and assist with...
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Meet the Essentials for Childhood Initiative Team (Part 2/2)
Meet some of the Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative team members: Angela Ponivas is the Chief of the California Department of Social Services Office of Child Abuse Prevention (CDSS/OCAP). She has been in the OCAP almost five years, working at a systems level on behalf of children and families. Angela provides executive oversight of the development and execution of Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative activities at CDSS. Prior to working for the State, Angela was the Executive...
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More American children and teens aren't just obese. They're morbidly obese. [Vox.com]
Public health researchers cheered an encouraging trend recently : Childhood obesity rates, which rose steadily through the 1980s and 1990s, seemed to have plateaued in the 2000s. But new research suggests a different, troubling problem lurking behind that plateau — a steep rise in the rates of severe obesity, particularly among older and minority children. The fraction of adolescents with severe obesity — a body mass index of 40 or greater — has more than doubled from 0.9 percent in 1999 to...
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Most kids on public coverage have parents who work for big companies, new study finds [centerforhealthjournalism.org]
By Giles Bruce, Center for Health Journalism, July 3, 2019. The conventional wisdom is that kids are on government health insurance because their parents are unemployed or work at small businesses with meager benefits. A study released this week debunks that theory. Research from the PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia found that the majority of children insured through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) — more than 70% — have a parent employed by a large...
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Moving Americans Out of Poverty Will Take More Than Money [citylab.com]
As they worked on assembling a new report on American poverty, a consortium of researchers fanned out across the U.S. to talk to people living in pockets of concentrated need—from rural Maine and the Lummi Nation of the Pacific Northwest to major cities like Chicago, Baltimore, Atlanta, and Detroit. One of these site visits took the team to a neighborhood in San Jose, California, where Mexican immigrants struggle with tech-boom-fueled housing costs: Think $600 a month for a couch to sleep...
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National Council Webinar: Organizational Approaches to Effective Trauma-Informed Services
I viewed this webinar a couple of weeks ago and found it quite useful. https://www.thenationalcouncil...ars/webinar-archive/ Scroll down to find Organizational Approaches to Effective Trauma-Informed Services Cheryl Sharp, Senior Advisor...