Tagged With "San Francisco"
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Report reveals how foster care, juvenile and adult justice systems traumatize youth, calls for policy shifts
YWFC sponsored Sister Warriors meeting When she was 15 years old, Lucero Herrera was put in a rehab program by San Francisco’s Juvenile Court because she was getting drunk regularly. And in doing so, the court failed to explore the root of her drinking. Had they done so, she said, they would have found that anger and trauma were lurking underneath, driven by her ACEs: adverse childhood experiences. Lucero Herrera "Why did they put me in a drug program when I had an anger problem? I went...
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Researchers Call for Quality-Improvement Changes in Medi-Cal Plans [chcf.org]
By Xenia Shih Bion, California Health Care Foundation, October 7, 2019 California should move swiftly to improve the quality of care in the managed care plans that serve 80% of Medi-Cal’s nearly 14 million enrollees, according to researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Led by Professor of Medicine Andrew Bindman, MD, with support from CHCF, the researchers examined 41 quality measures and found that more than half of the quality measures stayed the same or declined...
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Safe & Sound: Integrating protective factors and ACEs science to end child abuse in San Francisco in 50 years
It was almost a ritual, but one that regularly disrupted the parenting class at a San Francisco-based child abuse prevention organization. Every time a siren blared in the streets below, a female participant bolted out of the room to seek safety in the windowless interior rooms of the multilevel labyrinthine white Victorian that houses Safe & Sound . Molly Jardiniano And it didn’t just happen in the parenting class. “When she heard the fire trucks, she said she would become paralyzed,...
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San Bruno, CA, police reduce stress, burn-out with mindfulness
When Officer John Hampton of the San Bruno Police Department in San Bruno, CA, first heard that mindfulness training was being offered to him and his fellow cops, he had two reactions. John Hampton “I think my major reaction was: ‘Oh, there’s some hippy thing that they’re trying to get cops to do,’” he said. “When I say that, it’s funny because that’s not my voice. It’s the caricature of a police officer-like voice. In the back of my mind, I was interested and open to it, but that police...
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San Francisco Child Abuse Prevention Center hosts private Paper Tigers screening and panel of county trauma-informed systems leaders
On the evening of March 2, 2016, the SF Child Abuse Prevention Center hosted a private screening of Paper Tigers with an accompanying panel of SF county systems leaders for about 80 community members. Paper Tigers is an intimate look into the lives of selected students at Lincoln High School, an alternative school that specializes in educating traumatized youth. Set amidst the rural community of Walla Walla, WA, the film examines the inspiring promise of Trauma Informed Communities — a...
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San Francisco cops go back to school to better understand teens (sfchronicle.com)
Seven teens loitered in a San Francisco park, and before long two police officers shuffled over and started grilling them. “Get over here,” a female officer yelled. “Sit your ass down.” Five of the kids stared at the officer with wide eyes and promptly planted themselves on the ground. Two others crossed their arms and ignored the officer’s commands. Suddenly, the officer burst out laughing and hugged the flustered kids. “Sorry,” she said, “sorry!” This was the first role playing exercise of...
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San Francisco County Data Dashboard: Child Adversity and Well-Being
A product of the Essentials for Childhood Initiative (EfC), the Child Adversity and Well-Being Dashboards contain indicators of child adversity, health and well-being utilizing data available on kidsdata.org . For more information about the dashboards, please refer to the California Data Dashboards page. The San Francisco County Data Dashboard contains select indicators of child adversity and well-being. The dashboard is a product of the Shared Data and Outcomes Workgroup of the California...
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San Francisco Declares the N.R.A. a ‘Domestic Terrorist Organization’ [nytimes.com]
By Mariel Padilla, The New York Times, September 4, 2019 Unsettled by recent mass shootings across the nation, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a resolution this week declaring the National Rifle Association a domestic terrorist organization. The resolution was introduced by Supervisor Catherine Stefani on July 30, two days after a shooting at a garlic festival in Gilroy, Calif., in which three people were killed and more than a dozen others injured. Before the...
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San Francisco moving toward opening nation’s 1st safe injection clinic (sfchronicle.com)
San Francisco political leaders have been steadily coming around to the idea of opening safe injection centers where addicts could shoot drugs in a controlled situation instead of outside on the sidewalk. And now, it seems, they won't let state or federal law get in their way. " We've got to take chances," said Board of Supervisors President London Breed, who in April became an unexpected champion of safe injection drug sites and was behind the creation of a task force that's expected to...
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San Francisco school is removing a ‘traumatizing’ George Washington mural. (good.is)
For nearly a century, a massive mural by painter Victor Arnautoff titled “The Life of Washington” has lined the hallways of San Francisco’s George Washington High School . The mural “glorifies slavery, genocide, colonization, manifest destiny, white supremacy [and] oppression.” So said Washington High School’s Reflection and Action Group , an ad-hoc committee formed late last year and made up of Native Americans from the community, students, school employees, local artists and historians.
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School by school, Berkeley Healthy Schools Collaborative is forging ahead on building resilience
What began as a presentation by ACEs Connection's Donielle Prince about ACEs science for members of the Berkeley Healthy Schools Collaborative morphed into a lively discussion about how the 11 members who attended the meeting were involved in shepherding trauma-informed practices into their organizations and schools. Prince, who is ACEs Connection’s San Francisco Bay Area community facilitator, talked about the evolution of ACEs Connection into a network of more than 22,000 members in...
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SF Board of Supervisors introduces legislation to eliminate criminal justice fees (abc7.news)
The City of San Francisco is looking to eliminate criminal justice fees ranging from probation fees to electronic monitoring fees and booking fees. The fees, Breed said, create barriers for people attempting to turn their lives around, and the city only collects between 9 and 15 percent of the fees. The proposal, which Breed called a "collaboration," also has the support of the San Francisco Public Defender's Office and San Francisco District Attorney. "From a fiscal standpoint, a social...
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SF may become first US city with fully paid parental leave: Here's what others get [San Francisco Cronicle]
California is already one of the best spots in the United States to have a child, but legislation before the Board of Supervisors could make San Francisco the only place in America where new parents don't take a pay cut, at least for a portion of their time off. When it comes to maternity and paternity leave, the United States has little to boast about. It is the only industrialized country in the world that does not guarantee paid maternity leave. Some states, including California, do give...
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SF Mayor's Office- Our Children, Our Families
Council Members, Co Chairs, City Dept. Members, SFUSD Members, Community Members The San Francisco Our Children, Our Families Council consists of up to 42 members, including: the Mayor and 13 appointed City department heads the Superintendent and up...
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SF Public Defender Demands Answers Over Mentally Ill Inmates Languishing in Jail [sfexaminer.com]
By Laura Waxmann, San Francisco Examiner, September 5, 2019 San Francisco’s shortage of mental health beds could be leaving some mentally ill jail inmates who have been ordered into treatment waiting behind bars months longer than necessary. The San Francisco Examiner has learned that the Public Defender’s Office last week subpoenaed Department of Public Health officials seeking information on the cases of eight conserved and incarcerated clients. In at least one case, an incarcerated person...
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SF safe injection sites expected to be first in nation, open around July 1 [sfchronicle.com]
San Francisco is on track to open its first two safe injection sites this July, a milestone that will likely make the city the first in the country to embrace the controversial model of allowing drug users to shoot up under supervision. Other cities — including Seattle, Baltimore and Philadelphia — are talking about opening their own safe injection facilities, but San Francisco could get there first. Facilities already exist in Canada, Australia and Europe. Barbara Garcia, director of San...
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Solano County launches its ACEs and resilience initiative inviting all to take action
Elizabeth Huntley recalls the day when her family’s life was turned upside down. “One day my mom woke up and she packed up all of our clothes, all five of us…and she took me and my younger sister who had the same father… down to my paternal grandmother’s house…and she left us there. She took my middle sister to a town near Birmingham, Ala., and left her there. She took my only brother and an older sister back to Huntsville and left them at a sister’s house. Then she went back to that housing...
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Solano County's (CA) ACEs initiative, a robust community effort, makes room for input from all
In a house called “Johanna’s House” on a tree-lined side street in Vallejo, Calif., four women are filling out the adverse childhood experiences (ACE) survey given to them by Maria Guevara, the founder of Vallejo Together, an organization that serves homeless residents in Vallejo. The house was named for Johanna Dilag, a homeless woman who was found dead along with her dog.
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Sold-out Paper Tigers screening and panel in Berkeley, CA
Over 130 residents from across the San Francisco Bay Area representing education, health, and law enforcement attended the sold-out screening of Paper Tigers and panel on December 9 at the Brower Center in Berkeley, CA. The panel discussion was so involved it went 25 minutes longer than scheduled and spilled into the lobby where attendees talked until 10 pm! The documentary Paper Tigers follows six students during a school year at Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA. Lincoln is the...
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SPARCC’s Six Regions | Igniting New Approaches to Equity & Opportunity (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)
The Strong, Prosperous, And Resilient Communities Challenge – or SPARCC – is a three-year, $90 million initiative that will empower communities and bolster local groups to ensure that major new infrastructure investments lead to better opportunities for all. SPARCC is excited to announce its initial cohort of six sites, empowering communities to advance initiatives that lead to more equitable outcomes. SPARCC’s initial six sites are: Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Memphis, and the...
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The Healing:One Woman's Journey from Poverty to Inner Riches
Saeeda Hafiz, author of The Healing: One Woman's Journey from Poverty to Inner Riches, is a nutrition educator for San Francisco Unified School District, wellness expert, trained cook, and yoga teacher. "On the surface, she was an accomplished professional. Beneath the exterior, however, she suffered from her past and her family challenges, including domestic violence, addiction and poverty that she witnessed throughout her childhood. Through her writing, Saeeda takes us on a journey...
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The Journey of Healing: Impacts and Intersections of Trauma and Resilience (Up to 5.5 FREE CEUs!)
Free professional development opportunity in San Francisco: http://bit.ly/NICOSPDD2020 NICOS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT DAY MONDAY, JANUARY 13, 2020 9:00AM - 5:00PM SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY KORET AUDITORIUM 100 LARKIN ST. SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94102 (This is not a library sponsored program) NICOS Chinese Health Coalition is offering a free professional development event for service providers and students in social work, primary and behavioral health, and other related fields. Program will...
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The San Francisco Jail That Started a School [Medium.com]
I t’s the first day of class for Child Development 123: Learning Disabilities, and instructor Sylvia Buford, PhD, is laying down some rules. “I do children’s disabilities. I don’t do adult meltdowns,” she says. “If there’s a problem” — she points at her desk — “I will have to use that radio” to summon help. Her students, more than a dozen women dressed in the orange sweatshirts and sweatpants worn by inmates of San Francisco County Jail Number 2 near downtown San Francisco, listen quietly as...
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This doctor pioneered a way to treat stress in children, a startling source of future disease [WashingtonPost.com]
Soon after Nadine Burke Harris opened a pediatrics clinic in a low-income neighborhood in San Francisco, she began grappling with the high rates of asthma and other illnesses that she was diagnosing in her patients. She wanted to understand why so many of the kids she saw were so sick. “They would have chronic abdominal pain, headaches, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, opposition defiant disorder,” she said. “It could be that all these different kids have all these diagnoses, or it...
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Toxic Stress, Behavioral Health, and the Next Major Era in Public Health by Mental Health America
To view the document, click on the following link: http://www.mentalhealthamerica.net/issues/toxic-stress-behavioral-health-and-next-major-era-public-health
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Toxic Stress, Toxic Streets (4 minute video)
This video is about 2 years old, but I just came across it last week and wanted to share with you all. It is a powerful statement by the students at Leadership High School in San Francisco, CA. They speak about the ongoing adversity and toxic stress in their daily lives and in their community, all through the power of music. The youth voice is so important as we work to bring trauma-informed and resilience building practices to communities. Link to video: Toxic Stress, Toxic Streets
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Trauma-inducing Youth Leadership Retreats
According to an investigation by the San Francisco Chronicle , residential retreats aimed at developing leadership and empathy in high school students are using questionable methods such as asking participants to reenact racist behavior, shout degrading slurs at one another and divulge family trauma. While some students say the camp experiences are transformative, the investigation finds the teaching methods suspect, unethical and possibly harmful. A San Jose judge has now called for the Bay...
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Trauma Informed Community Building: A Model for Strengthening Community in Trauma Affected Neighborhoods [Weinstein, Wolin, Rose, May 2014]
Bridge Housing Corporation and Health Equity Institute, San Francisco, CA Federal housing programs such as HOPE VI and CHOICE Neighborhoods mandate community leadership as integral revitalization efforts and have institutionalized this...
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Trauma-informed groups rev up to address race, inclusion
Eighteen-year-old Kia Hanson has always enjoyed her time as a youth leader at the East Oakland Youth Development Center (EOYDC). She’s worked mostly with five- and six-year-olds since she began in 2016. Recently, she tapped into new skills, especially if the kids were having a meltdown. Kia Hanson “If they’re off, we ask them, ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘Do you want to talk about anything?’,” she explains. “Basically asking before assuming they’re mad at the world for no reason.” What made the...
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Trauma Transformed launches regional effort in San Francisco Bay Area
Nearly 300 impassioned and committed people crowded into the Green Room at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center last week to launch Trauma Transformed. Known as T2, the regional effort representing the San Francisco...
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UCSF News - Poor Health: When Poverty Becomes Disease
Talmadge King Jr. , MD, dean of the UCSF School of Medicine, tells the story of an ER physician who had lost a document and was searching frantically for it in the garbage bins behind Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center. What he found instead in the mountain of rubbish were crumpled prescription slips that patients had tossed in hospital trash cans throughout the week. “Going forward, the conversations that ER doctor had with his patients changed. They became,...
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UCSF Plans to Shutter Clinic Serving Minority Youth [missionlocal.org]
One of a handful of youth clinics serving the Mission, Bayview, Excelsior, and Visitacion Valley communities will be shut down by the end of April, a move decried by school nurses who say it leaves young women and men of color without easy access to birth control, testing for pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections, and reproductive health education. “There’s going to be a lot of schools in this area that are going to be severely impacted by not having them in this area,” said...
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Why a Running Club for the Homeless Is Heading to San Francisco [CityLab.com]
In 2007, Anne Mahlum was living in Philadelphia. She had a habit of waking up early to exercise; each morning, her route took her by a homeless shelter. Even at dawn, there were people out in front. One morning, they waved. As Mahlum built up a rapport with her early-morning neighbors, she started thinking: Why am I running past them when I could run with them? Mahlum had started running as a teenager to cope with troubles at home. Maybe, she thought, running could help other people the same...
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ACEs Science Champions Series: Why this financial coach integrates ACEs-based training
In foreground, Dr. Donielle Prince (l) and Saundra Davis (r) ____________________________ Saundra Davis, a financial coach and consultant who trains other coaches on building resilience among the working poor, knew she had met her partner in helping people deal with their “money disorders” when she first met Dr. Donielle Prince in Sacramento at a black women’s gathering in 2015. Dr. Prince works with ACEs Connection as its San Francisco Bay Area regional community facilitator. She also...
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Young Women’s Freedom Center Reports Dire Impact of Criminalization in San Francisco [sfbayview.com]
By Layla Crater, San Francisco Bay View, August 25, 2019 The Young Women’s Freedom Center, in partnership with the San Francisco Department of Children, Youth and Their Families (DCYF) and the San Francisco Adult Probation Department, has released the findings of a report that shows the dire impact of criminalization on women, girls and transgender and gender non-conforming people of color – from housing instability to economic hardship and the intergenerational trauma of mass incarceration.
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Youth-led community organizing as a tool for building resilience
It started as an answer to a youth-led campaign. Young people in arts programs in San Francisco Bay Area schools had produced spoken word videos about inequities in their communities that helped put them at risk for type 2 diabetes. Dr. Jean Junior The response by their peers was enormous, according to Dr. Jean Junior, who volunteered for the project as a pediatric resident at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). “Young people would say ‘You’ve actually gotten me interested.
Comment
Re: Racial disparities drop in criminal justice system after Prop. 47, study says [sfchronicle.com]
Racial disparities didn't drop... there are literally less than 3% black people in SF and with gentrification, even less latino folks. Lets be accurate with our data. San Francisco is still one of the most racists criminal justice systems in the country. With a sheriff who has promised to work with ICE...
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Re: How an Intervention Program Stops the Revolving Door of Violent Injuries [KQED California Report]
Thank you Gail for sharing this inspirational article! Wrap around programs are critically imperative and life changing. Dr. Dicker at UCSF is a powerful role model of compassionate intervention for our nation to replicate. As the author states," Repeat injury for survivors of violent crime is remarkably high. Studies show 44 percent of people who have been shot or stabbed get violently injured again within five years, and that one out of five of those people die. UC San Francisco professor...
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Domestic violence shelters in SF, elsewhere see rise in calls, severity of violence [sfchronicle.com]
By Bob Egelko, San Francisco Chronicle, June 5, 2020 One result of shelter-in-place orders during the coronavirus pandemic is to confine some household members with others who abuse them. By most indications, domestic violence has become more frequent and more violent. Police chiefs nationwide reported increases of 10% to 30% in domestic assaults in the first two weeks after a national emergency was declared in March, according to a USA Today survey. On April 6, United Nations Secretary...
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Nearly half of SF police use-of-force cases last year involved black people [sfchronicle.com]
By Joaquin Palomino, San Francisco Chronicle, June 12, 2020 Phelicia Jones was devastated five years ago as she watched a video of five police officers shooting a young black man more than 20 times in San Francisco’s Bayview district after he refused to drop a knife. The 2015 killing of Mario Woods sparked protests across the Bay Area and reforms within the Police Department. Jones and others hoped to see real shifts in police conduct in San Francisco, but by at least one important measure,...
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California reaches milestone with ACEs initiatives pulsing in all 58 counties. Next: All CA cities.
Karen Clemmer, the Northwest community facilitator with ACEs Connection, was already deeply interested in the CDC/Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study when she and a colleague from the Child Parent Institute were invited to lunch by ACEs Connection founder and publisher Jane Stevens in 2012. But that lunch meeting changed everything.
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COVID-19 Black initiative delivers call to action in San Francisco Bay Area
As the COVID-19 pandemic began its devastating sweep through African American communities in April, Andre Chapman, CEO of the San Jose, California-based Unity Care , saw a glaring need for developing a COVID-19 prevention campaign that spoke directly to African Americans. “Many of our young folks and families really didn't understand the impact of this virus, nor did they believe much of the information that was coming through the media,” says Chapman. His organization provides housing and...
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‘Trauma on top of trauma’: Bay Area students under stress from pandemic face wildfire risks [sfchronicle.com]
By Jill Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle, August 25, 2020 Students in the Bonny Doon school district had been back in class — virtually — for two days before the wildfires forced them to evacuate, many fleeing for their lives in the middle of the night Wednesday. Teachers and students lost homes to the powerful wildfires raging through the charming, wooded town in the Santa Cruz Mountains. School had just started, but now Superintendent Mike Heffner, who is also the principal of the...
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ACEs & Trauma-Informed Pediatric Care in COVID-19 [ucsfbenioffchildrens.org]
UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals, Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Portal & Center for Child & Community Health Register now and be eligible for 5 hours of AMA Category 1 CME credit and ABP MOC Part 2 credit. Saturday, October 10, 2020 8am - 3:30 pm Recognizing & Addressing Childhood Trauma - Dayna Long MD Trauma-Informed Care Principles in COVID-19 - Saun-Toy Trotter MFT & Ken Epstein LCSW, PhD Patient Perspective - Jen Leland MFT & Joan Jeung MD Early Adopters Discuss...
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Behavioral health issues deepen among local youth experiencing homelessness [bizjournals.com]
By Erin Bernall, San Francisco Business Times, October 5, 2020 For young people experiencing homelessness, each day begins in search of urgent basics, such as food and safety. This quest is compounded with threats of violence and exploitation, uncertainty and distrust, and extreme stress, all of which can impact health and wellness for this vulnerable group of young people ages 12-24. In San Francisco, an estimated one in five individuals experiencing homelessness is under the age of 25, and...
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Funding Opportunity: California Preterm Birth Initiative
The California Preterm Birth Initiative is pleased to share our spring 2021 request for applications for innovative research proposals on preterm birth! About the Opportunity Twice a year, in the spring and fall, we request research proposals via the UCSF Resource Allocation Program (RAP). The spring RAP applications are due by March 1st. What We're Looking For We are looking for proposals focused on: Reducing preterm birth rates Addressing racial disparities in preterm birth and/or...