Tagged With "USC School of Social Work"
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Foster care system takes its knocks, but it works for many: Dennis McCarthy (dailynews.com)
(Image: Moises Lopez with Danny Treyo) The 2016 graduating class from the school of hard knocks stood on stage at the Disney Concert Hall last week to be honored with college scholarships for completing the first leg of a long, tough journey they’ve been on. They are 175 foster care kids who have beaten every obstacle put in their path and succeeded beyond all expectations. They have shown the courage and they have the dreams. Now, it’s time to pursue them. They’ve all graduated from...
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Foster kids need face time with parents, but in LA County that's not easy (scpr.org)
According to a recent Los Angeles County report, nearly 10,000 children in the county's foster care system are receiving "reunification services" designed to help repair their families and return them to their parents — and visitation is a core, legally required component. "It's one of the most essential services we can provide," said Diane Iglesias, senior deputy director of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services. Visits help keep children connected with their...
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Free screening of "Resilience" at the Santa Barbara Int'l Film Festival Feb. 4
Yes, that's at 2 p.m. this Thursday at the Lobero Theater , California's oldest, continuously operating theatre! James Redford, who directed Resilience , will be doing a Q-and-A following the screening on Thursday. (He will not attend the Friday screening.) Resilience premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Friday, Jan. 22 , followed by several more screenings last week. Here's the description from the Resilience page on the Santa Barbara International Film Festival web...
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Gage Middle School pilots transcendental meditation as model of ‘self-care’ (lausd.org)
L.A. Unified mental health experts say that self-care is the key to not simply surviving but thriving during the holidays and other times of stress. This means slowing down and taking time for yourself. Stretch your muscles before you get up in the morning, stick to your exercise routine and take time to take a deep breath and slow down. Through a grant from the California Endowment , funded by the David Lynch Foundation , students and staff at Gage Middle School are practicing...
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Grief, Healing and Meditation for Los Angeles Foster Youth [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
For children in foster care, struggling with grief and loss can go hand in hand with experiencing trauma. Grief and loss are unfortunately a common, and sometimes pervasive emotional state. What's worse, is the effects of grief and loss - be that internalizing or externalizing, are oftentimes missed as being connected to the grief and loss. This results in many foster youth never understanding their own grief or never mourning their own loss. The Gift of Compassion fellowship is a program...
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He's devoted his life to caring for L.A.'s neediest patients, and Trumpcare has him very nervous (losangelestimes.com)
Jonathan LoPresti went to USC as an undergrad in 1974. And liked it. So much so that he stayed on for a PhD in physiology, and then stuck with the Trojan family for medical school. For his residency, take a wild guess. Yes, USC, and he’s still doctoring at L.A. County-USC Medical Center. LoPresti, who’s had M.D. after his name for 36 years, is a true believer in the mission at one of the oldest and largest public hospitals in the nation. Going back to the late 1800s, Southern Californians by...
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Healing and Justice Toolkit (Dignity and Power Now)
We have learned so much from our anchor organization Dignity And Power Now , a “Los Angeles based grassroots organization founded in 2012 that fights for the dignity and power of all incarcerated people, their families, and communities” and are so thrilled to have been able to collaborate on a Healing Justice Toolkit with DPN. The guide was written by DPN, edited by Thandisizwe Chimurenga, translated into Spanish by delia ayala, and designed by Design Action Collective . Here is an excerpt...
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Helping youths can be a high-wire act, but it’s one L.A. County Sheriff’s Department is eager to support (pasadenanews.com)
Low self-esteem. Environment. A desire to belong. A thirst for danger. They are all reasons why youths get involved in gangs. Although there are young gang members, Contreras is not one of them. But he and hundreds of others like him are members of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Youth Activities League. The LASD has 16 YALs throughout the county, from Industry to Walnut to Compton to Pico Rivera to East Los Angeles to Los Angeles to South L.A. and beyond. The programs are intended to...
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Homegirl Cafe offers ‘platos’ by ex-gang members with hope [apnews.com]
LOS ANGELES (AP) — In a different time, at another place, and under other circumstances, you might have run away from Latisha Valenzuela and Glenda Alvarenga. But at Homegirl Cafe, a Los Angeles breakfast and lunch spot with a Latino twist, the two waitresses welcome you with smiles and friendship. “You alone?” Valenzuela asked when I recently visited. “Don’t worry. We’ll keep you company.” After seating me, she tells me, “you’ll want our cinnamon coffee. We make it ourselves.” She says it...
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Homelessness jumps 12% in L.A. County and 16% in the city; officials ‘stunned’ (latimes.com)
In a hard reality check for Los Angeles County’s multibillion-dollar hope of ending homelessness, officials reported Tuesday that the number of people living on the streets, in vehicles and in shelters increased by about 12% over last year. The annual point-in-time count, delivered to the Board of Supervisors, put the number of homeless people just shy of 59,000 countywide. Within the city of Los Angeles, the number soared to more than 36,000, a 16% increase. “At this point of unprecedented...
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Homelessness jumps 12% in L.A. County and 16% in the city; officials ‘stunned’ (latimes.com)
In a hard reality check for Los Angeles County’s multibillion-dollar hope of ending homelessness, officials reported Tuesday that the number of people living on the streets, in vehicles and in shelters increased by about 12% over last year. The annual point-in-time count, delivered to the Board of Supervisors, put the number of homeless people just shy of 59,000 countywide. Within the city of Los Angeles, the number soared to more than 36,000, a 16% increase. “At this point of unprecedented...
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How a Group of Female Inmates Won the Right to Live with Their Children [Vice.com]
The springtime sun blazes over East Arrow Highway in Pomona, California, and the glare off the whitish-gray concrete walkways forces everyone to squint. Regina Dotson moves busily in and out of her office on the second floor of a residential...
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'How do you explain love?' Finding community, friends and more at L.A.'s Braille Institute (latimes.com)
Tania and Jose Amaya are both a little shy, but ask them how they met and they'll light up. She'll blush. He'll grin. She was a computer teacher at the Braille Institute in East Hollywood, soft-spoken and sweet. He was a volunteer, deaf and legally blind, unable to speak. She was enrolled in deaf studies at Cal State Northridge . He'd help with her sign language homework. They'd speak in a language for the deaf-blind, called tactile sign language. She'd sign, and he'd hold his hands over...
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How one California district narrowed its Latino achievement gap (edsource.org)
Last year, a girl in Melody Gonzalez’s class at Las Palmas Middle School, in the San Gabriel Valley, started sobbing in class one day. Gonzales asked her what was wrong. The girl said her father had just been deported. “I felt terrible. There was nothing I could say or do. So I just listened,” said Gonzalez, who’s been teaching seven years. “I just tried to be there for her. I think the listening helped — now she knows she can come to me. … Just building that relationship with kids makes a...
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How One Connection at CYW’s ACEs Conference Sparked Awareness into Action
Origins offers a number of training and consulting services. We developed The Basics as a half-day session to provide the foundation to support trauma-informed and resilience practices across sectors and industries. The session includes an overview of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study, the neurobiology of toxic stress, the impact of social and historical trauma, and the science of resilience. We have tested The Basics with two cross-sector audiences, in Los Angeles and Phoenix.
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How Social Workers Improve Relationships Between Police and Communities
by MSW@USC Staff In 1955 , the Los Angeles Police Department adopted the motto “To Protect and Serve,” and over the last seven decades, many other American law enforcement departments followed suit. But in the Black Lives Matter era, those words may not resonate with some members of the communities police are tasked with protecting and serving. Community members may feel law enforcement officials exercise more authority than necessary. How can both sides work to create a more positive...
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How to Navigate Amidst Overwhelming Times by The Trauma Stewardship Institute
How to Navigate Amidst Overwhelming Times Whether because of trauma, crises, or extremely rough days. Please join us for a day of raising awareness of trauma, vicarious trauma, and systematic oppression. This workshop will address how we’re being impacted by current and past overwhelm, crises, toll, or trauma and establish concrete means for how to keep on keeping on both individually and collectively. Laura van Dernoot Lipsky will offer a compelling mix of personal insight, cutting-edge...
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In L.A., Nine in Ten Incarcerated Youth Have a Documented Mental Health Issue [chronicleofsocialchange.org]
By Jeremy Loudenback, The Chronicle of Social Change, June 12, 2019. After a new report found that more than 90 percent of youth in the county’s juvenile halls had an open mental health case, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors pledged to improve mental health care to justice-involved youth in county. That includes both more services for youth detained in the county’s juvenile detention facilities and more options to divert youth away from incarceration and into less restrictive...
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In Spanish: Handouts for parents about ACEs, toxic stress & resilience
The Community & Family Services Division at the Spokane (WA) Regional Health District has come through again, with a Spanish version of the parent handout (in English) that we posted last year , and which has been downloaded thousands of times. The English versions came about whiledoing a story about the trauma-in formed elementary schools in Spokane, WA .I interviewedp ublic health nurse Melissa Charbonneau who said that she'd been giving an...
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Influencing Complex Systems Change (nonprofitquarterly.org)
Complex times require complex responses. Through our work in the field, we have seen a set of evolving practices that help leaders, organizations, and networks achieve the scale and depth of transformative change needed today. These practices are: Rethinking boundaries to address intersecting constituencies, issues, and geographies. Learning how to surf the waves of irrational and unpredictable developments . Drawing on multiple ways of knowing to surface, include, and transcend differences...
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Inside the New Skid Row Sobering Center (ladowntownnews.com)
The facility at 640 S. Maple Ave. is open 24 hours a day. It is staffed with medical practitioners, social workers and sober coaches, people who have cleaned up and can offer life advice. Patients, most of them from Skid Row, are given beds, medical treatment when required, food and snacks, and a chance to connect with social services. The average patient will stay in the facility somewhere between a few hours and overnight. The center works with a number of Skid Row outreach teams that have...
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Is There A Foster-Care-To-Prison Pipeline? If So, This New LA-Based Program Aims To Break It (witnessla.com)
“Everyone talks about the school-to-prison pipeline,” said Loyola Law School professor Sean Kennedy. “But doing this work you see that there’s a group-home-to-prison. Kennedy is the Director of Loyola’s respected Center for Juvenile Law and Policy (CJLP), which was founded in 2004 to “tackle the injustices of the Los Angeles County juvenile court system” by providing pro bono advocacy for youth who find themselves caught up in that system. Thanks to a highly competitive $1 million grant from...
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It’s About Results at Scale, Not Collective Impact [SSIR.org]
t’s easy to see why collective impact —the commitment of a group of important cross-sector actors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem—caught fire in 2010. During an economic downturn, when few new resources were available, a voice said there was a way to do more with what we already had. The concept offered hope for achieving results at the scale we desired, even though we were feeling constrained. And thank goodness. Collective impact both validated work that had been...
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'It's not supposed to be this way': Why it's getting more difficult for foster families (latimes.com)
Foster care asks caregivers to perform an almost impossible task: Love the child as your own, but relinquish the youth without delay or protest when social workers say the time has come. The anguish sometimes associated with such removals came into sharp focus last week when social workers removed a 6-year-old Santa Clarita girl who is part Choctaw, from her longtime foster parents. Across the nation, newspapers and television broadcasts displayed images of her distressed caregivers saying...
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ITRC 2018 California Conference: Preparing People for Climate Change in California
To See the Conference Agenda, List of All-Star Speakers, and To Register Click Here Why Should Californians Attend This Unique Conference ? From high levels of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), to job and financial struggles, racism and other forms of inequity and injustice, traumatic stress is epidemic today. Climate change will aggravate all of these existing adversities, and add many new ones as well. Yet, California is leading the U.S. in finding innovative new ways to address...
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Job Posting: Assistant Director/Lead Coach Trauma-Informed Schools Initiative, Deadline to apply 4/13/17
The Assistant Director position is a two-year grant funded position, with the potential for extension, with Los Angeles Education Partnership. This project is designed to support and implement a trauma-informed school environment in selected K-12 schools both within and outside of California through a partnership with Kaiser Permanente. A central component of this project’s approach to a trauma-informed school environment is to embed practices at each school that prioritize the wellness of...
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Jobs and work support could curtail L.A.'s stubborn homeless crisis, study says (latimes.com)
Providing jobs and other aid to Los Angeles County residents soon after they land in the streets could help prevent 2,600 to 5,200 people a year from falling into persistent homelessness, according to a new study from a liberal think tank. The "Escape Routes" study from the nonprofit Economic Roundtable zeroes in on a key dilemma in Los Angeles' homelessness crisis: Even as officials have moved 33,000 homeless people into permanent housing since 2013 and launched a $1.2-billion construction...
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Join us on May 17, 2019 for the SoCal Learning Community! Achieving Impact through Evaluation and Data for Family Strengthening Programs
Achieving Impact through Evaluation and Data for Family Strengthening Programs Know Your Audience: Program Participants, Potential Clients and Community Members Enroll Here! Date: Friday May 17, 2019 Time: Check in at 9:30am, begin at 10am, conclude at 12:30pm Enroll to join in person or remotely through one of the options below: Otis Booth Campus, Los Angeles Remote sites in Atascadero, Ventura, Lancaster, San Bernardino, Moreno Valley and San Diego LIVE online from your computer...
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Judge orders changes to L.A. County jail inmate discharge policy (DailyNews.com)
This April 14, 2015 staff file photo shows the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Mental Health Unit at the Twin Towers Correctional Facility. Hans Gutknecht/Los Angeles Daily News/File Los Angeles County jails have frequently been referred to as the largest de facto ental health facility in the country. On any given day, the region’s jails house and treat an average of 3,500 to 4,000 mentally ill inmates -- more than the number of patients managed in the entire...
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Kris Perry to speak at the 4CA Policymaker Education Day (May 1) - Still time to register!
Kris Perry to speak at Policymaker Education Day- Still time to register!
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L.A. County and Planned Parenthood to Open 50 High School Sexual Health and Well-Being Centers [latimes.com]
By Sonali Kohli, Los Angeles Times, December 12, 2019 A high school senior decided recently that she wants to become sexually active with her boyfriend. But she is not yet comfortable talking to her mom about birth control and would be unable to get to a doctor’s appointment on her own. Instead, she walked over to the new well-being center at school during a free period. It was easy. Planned Parenthood runs a sexual healthcare clinic at Esteban Torres High School in East L.A. once a week.
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L.A. County has seven female police chiefs. They've brought different skills — and set an all-time high (latimes.com)
(Lisa) Rosales is one of seven female police chiefs in Los Angeles County, an all-time high. Women lead departments in Santa Monica, Beverly Hills, Claremont, Hermosa Beach, Alhambra and Manhattan Beach. Several of the chiefs gathered recently at USC’s Sol Price School of Public Policy for a panel discussion on female leaders in law enforcement. Rosales said her style of policing encompasses listening, empathy and patience — qualities she said have helped de-escalate potentially volatile...
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L.A. County is shutting down troubled centers for foster kids with nowhere else to go [LATimes.com]
he waiting rooms for foster youths with nowhere else to go opened with great fanfare several years ago. Known as Youth Welcome Centers, they were hailed by Los Angeles County officials as an important way to address the chronic shortage of foster homes, especially for children hardest to place. They were the only facilities in the county system with a no-refusal policy and quickly became a place for youths who would otherwise be homeless. But in the next few days, the county plans to close...
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L.A. County needs something new in next probation chief: Guest commentary (dailynews.com)
Over the last week, five final candidates interviewed for the position of chief of the Los Angeles County Probation Department. This week, the County Board of Supervisors will choose the next chief in a closed session, without community input or insight. The new chief will be our seventh in 10 years. We represent organizations that work with youth who have been impacted by the probation and court systems in Los Angeles. Collectively, we have experienced the juvenile justice system...
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L.A. County Plans Juvenile Diversion Push (chronicalofsocialchange.org)
On Tuesday, the supervisors will vote on a proposal that would launch an action plan for creating a comprehensive plan for youth diversion across the county. “Keeping young people out of the traditional justice system whenever possible through diversion programs is a promising strategy for improving the social, academic, economic and health outcomes of young people and ultimately reducing recidivism and improving public safety,” according to a motion from Supervisors Mark Ridley-Thomas and...
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L.A. County to consider overhaul of defense system for juveniles accused of crimes [Los Angeles Times]
Los Angeles County elected officials are preparing to consider an overhaul of the county's system for defending minors accused of crimes, following the release of a report that found attorneys contracted by the county to represent juveniles get fewer resources and less oversight than those in other counties. Youths whose families can't afford a lawyer and who can't be represented by the public defender's office because of a conflict of interest are represented by county-contracted private...
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L.A. County wants to help foster students avoid switching schools when they move homes (latimes.com)
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is expected to approve a motion Tuesday that would help foster children avoid having to switch schools when they move to a new home. The motion would create a pilot program to provide transportation for the students to the schools they were attending before being moved. “Changing schools, along with changing homes, creates further upheaval for foster kids who have already experienced trauma and loss,” said Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who introduced...
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L.A. Rolls Out Plan To Better Support ‘Disconnected’ Youth (chronicleofsocialchange.org)
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a plan on Tuesday that seeks to reduce the number of “disconnected” youth in the county, especially foster youth and formerly incarcerated young people. The goal of the regional effort is to improve the educational, workforce, housing and well-being outcomes of youth ages 16 to 24. According to a recent report , about one in every six young people in Los Angeles County is not enrolled in school and are not working. That’s about 207,440...
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L.A.'s chronic challenge: What to do with the mentally ill homeless who refuse help? (latimes.com)
Last week, at a strategy session in the offices of Homeless Health Care Los Angeles, the advocates passed around an outline calling for those who “refuse to accept the status quo” to stipulate, among other things, that “treatment is a right,” and that “to withhold treatment is cruel.” They’re aware, though, that they need to tread carefully. Celina Alvarez, executive director of the nonprofit Housing Works, said the group needs to make clear that it has no intention of abusing the rights of...
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L.A. teen moms in program that allows their children in class graduate from high school (abc7.com)
PANORAMA CITY, LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A group of students who studied in a classroom alongside their babies at a Panorama City school received their diplomas Monday. When 19-year-old Teresa Campa attended classes at the Assurance Learning Academy, her 5-month-old daughter Lydia usually sat with her. "Once I found out I was pregnant, I knew I had to finish high school," Teresa Campa said. Campa is one of nine teen mothers who received their high school diplomas thanks to a curriculum called...
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LA County adopts Age-Friendly Action Plan to help seniors keep homes, deal with health issues and more (dailynews.com)
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved a set of recommendations aimed at helping older adults keep their homes, deal with health problems and find ways to engage with other community members, as part of a broad initiative to improve their lives. The county’s Age-Friendly Action Plan offers ideas ranging from assistance with rent and repairs to mobile technology labs to train seniors. It suggests turning parks and libraries into age-and dementia-friendly centers where...
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LA County Demographics of Homelessness Continuum of Care (lacounty.gov)
A Dynamic and Deepening Crisis That Demands Our Attention By Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas The Board of Supervisors’ most recent initiative set aside $4 million for teams of social workers and health professionals to go out into the streets of Skid Row and connect homeless single adults to housing and supportive services. Los Angeles County has half a million more very low-income households than available apartments so the typical monthly rent has skyrocketed 27 percent since...
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LA County leaders greenlight effort to pay homeowners to house the homeless (dailynews.com)
A pilot program that pays some Los Angeles County homeowners to build a second dwelling on their property to house homeless people was approved with a 4-0 vote Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors. Homeowners in unincorporated communities who qualify can receive up to $75,000 to build a second dwelling in areas zoned for such structures, while others may get $50,000 to update and legalize an existing dwelling. The program was introduced last year as part of Los Angeles County's set of 47...
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LA County Puts Thousands of Kids on ‘Voluntary’ Probation for Merely Struggling With School [JJIE.org]
Marbella Munoz was a foster child for most of her life. As is true for many foster children bounced through multiple placements, she was frequently forced to change schools. Despite the repeated changes, Munoz said she managed to keep up her grades. When she was 17, school administrators told her she had been referred to a program called “school-based supervision.” The “supervision” was not provided by a school guidance counselor or a teacher but by a juvenile probation officer. [For more of...
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LA County's plan to keep Skid Row's intoxicated out of jail and the ER (scpr.org)
Los Angeles County opens its first sobering center Monday, on Skid Row. It will primarily serve homeless, intoxicated people who might otherwise be picked up by police or paramedics and taken to jail or an emergency room. The county built the Dr. David L. Murphy Sobering Center on Skid Row to break this expensive cycle, he said. Now, emergency responders will be able to take inebriated people to the Center to sober up and be referred to treatment and housing programs. There will be on-site...
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LA County’s sexual harassment complaint system can be improved, leaders say (dailynews.com)
The report presented to the Board of Supervisors by staff with the County Equity Oversight Panel outlined in detail how employees from all departments, such as deputies and doctors, nurses and social workers, can file complaints of harassment, bullying, or retaliation related to everything from age, ancestry, religion and gender identity, to marital status and disability, for example. Such complaints can be made through e-mail, a hotline, or in person. With a $30 billion budget, Los Angeles...
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Woo-woo or Science?
You've maybe heard of EMDR, neurofeedback, EFT (tapping) or practiced yoga. Maybe you've taken part in traditional healing ceremonies or religious rituals that are part of your culture. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Do these things really heal the hurts that we acquire during life and can we trust our recovery to something other than pharmaceuticals or the therapists' couch? There are plenty of communities that say yes .
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Work Smarter ~ Not Harder (15 minute webinar on navigating our LA Group) Noon - 12:15 pm on March 28th
Join Andi Fetzner (Los Angeles County ACEs Connection Group Manager) and Dana Brown (ACEs Connection Southern California Regional Facilitator) for an engaging navigation of the tools and resources available for our members on our Los Angeles group. Click on the Zoom webinar link: https://zoom.us/j/ 2722727272 (Join from PC, Mac, Linux, iOS or Android) - Log on ~ "now what do I do?" Andi: control "f" Dana: alphabetical - How to invite people to our LA group - Customize your notifications h...
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Working at the intersection of violence and land use (preventioninstitute.org)
This past September, the Healthy, Equitable, Active Land Use (HEALU) Network convened a summit in Los Angeles to explore the nexus of land use and community safety, drawing nearly 100 community members, policymakers, and representatives of community-based organizations. Our new report shares key learnings from this summit and invites people working in land use, transportation, food policy, education, housing, and other areas to consider the ways their own work can support safe communities.
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Working with Childhood Trauma: Professional Services Training on June 23rd
Echo Parenting & Education's Professional Services Training will be hosted by The CA Endowment on Thursday, June 23rd, from 9am - 4pm. A first in their series of trainings, the attendees will receive a comprehensive review of the current science and deepened understanding of: * Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) student * Effects of trauma/toxic stress on attachment, the body and brain of a developing child * Survival responses and regulation * Trauma Informed Care * Intergenerational...