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...

New and returning lawmakers take the oath of office on day one of Washington state's 2017 legislative session. — Jeanie Lindsay/Northwest News Network As advocates prepare to see how ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) science, trauma, and resilience play out in the 2020 state legislative sessions — many beginning in January — they are undoubtedly asking: “What does a legislator want?" It may be a stretch to play on Freud’s question: “What does a women want?", but the query captures how...

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...

California Essentials for Childhood has just released its second newsletter. The full newsletter can be found attached. Check it out!

Wednesday June 14th the Annie E. Casey Foundation released the 2017 Kids Count Data Book - State Trends in Child Well-Being. This comprehensive report is " a premier source of data on children and families." You can download the report from this post, as well as on the Kids Count website , where you can also access an interactive data map in their Data Center . This is an invaluable amount of data available to the public, relevant to anyone working with children and families - with the...

Mendocino recently shared 2019 data related to the economic impacts of child abuse. The attached documents are in a printable format.

ACEs Connection will begin highlighting ACEs and Resilience initiatives by county. We're starting this effort off by listing the recent ACEs Aware grantees by county.

On July 15, 2020, the California Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative held a webinar entitled, “Essentials for Childhood Initiative Webinar: OCAP 2020-2025 Strategic Plan” and heard from Angela Ponivas, Bureau Chief at the Office of Child Abuse Prevention (OCAP) at the California Department of Social Services (CDSS). The OCAP, a backbone agency in the Essentials for Childhood Initiative, works collaboratively with partners at the federal, state, and county- level with communities,...

Safe & Sound has developed an interactive website that details the rates of child abuse and the economic impact of abuse on California’s community, as well as the factors that both help to protect children and those that place them in greater risk. The information unveils the ongoing ills of child abuse underlying each community, and its impact on each of us. The data is viewable by county or region, downloadable, and is shareable. VIEW THE WEBSITE

The California Department of Social Services, Office of Child Abuse Prevention (CDSS/OCAP) are hosting a webinar speaker series for Child Abuse Prevention month. Please see the attached for information on the webinars in the series, presenters, and the links to registration. Tomorrow, there will be a special presentation from Kevin Campbell on the topic of the “Power of Connection” at 11 AM. Kevin Campbell is an American Child Protection and Children’s Mental Health Innovator and the founder...

Safe & Sound has recently updated their website with 2020 data that explores the economic impact of child maltreatment. This year, Safe & Sound has also enhanced the section that speaks to community protective factors (including seeking racial and social justice) which nurture family strengths and allow all children to thrive. Key features of Safe &Sound’s website include: Research on factors within a community that strengthen families and promote the safety of children,...

Safe & Sound is excited to share The Economics of Child Abuse in 2020: A Study of California & Its Counties . On this website, you can learn about the cost of child maltreatment in every community in California and how to take action to protect kids, strengthen families, and build communities. We would love your feedback on the site. Please take 5 minutes to complete our survey by Wednesday, June 2, so we can continue highlighting research and building tools that communities need.

A newly developed document titled “Utilizing Data to Improve Child Wellbeing Through Community Action” has just been released and can be found attached to this blog post. The purpose of this document is to identify best practices in utilizing data to monitor and evaluate child adversity, health, development, and wellbeing in order to build community support and create policy, systems, and environmental change. This resource was created in partnership by All Children Thrive - California and...

The EfC Initiative would like to share two resources developed by Safe & Sound , an organization dedicated to strengthening families and ending child abuse, that may be of interest to you in your work. The Economics of Child Abuse Report has been updated to share the economic impact of child maltreatment and estimates that California's communities incurred $22.6 billion in economic impacts due to child maltreatment in 2021. Explore this interactive tool to learn the economic impact of...

“Reimagining Child Wellbeing: Local Policy Strategies to Prevent and Reduce Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in California’s Communities” is a resource developed in collaboration with the All Children Thrive, California (ACT) project and the California Department of Public Health, Injury and Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB) and California Department of Social Service, Office of Child Abuse Prevention’s (CDSS/OCAP) ’s , Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative . This resource was created...