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By Mallory Moench, San Francisco Chronicle, April 22, 2020 UCSF sent 21 health care workers - seven doctors and 14 nurses - Wednesday to treat patients in the Navajo Nation hard-hit by the coronavirus. UCSF-trained doctors working on the largest Native American reservation in the U.S. asked San Francisco colleagues for help as the outbreak strains the health care system. Navajo Nation, where around 175,000 people live spread over 27,500 square miles in New Mexico and Arizona, has recorded...

By Mark Baldassare, Dean Bonner, Alyssa Dykman, and Rachel Lawler, Public Policy Institute of California, April 2020 Key findings from the current survey: Many California parents see school closures for COVID-19 as somewhat of a problem and are concerned with providing productive learning at home. An overwhelming majority of parents approve of school districts’ handling of closures and Governor Newsom’s handling of K–12 education. As optimism wanes about the economy, views on school bonds...

By Kellie Hwang and Michael Massa, San Francisco Chronicle, April 22, 2020 Bay Area leaders were first in the nation to take dramatic action aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus.Many thought it was going too far. But in the days and weeks following the shelter-in-place orders here, governors and mayors across the country followed the Bay Area and California’s lead. The Chronicle examined weekly coronavirus case rates, or how many new cases were reported per 100,000 people, for...

By Zaidee Stavely, EdSource, April 23, 2020 The stay-at-home order has upended some of California’s most crucial educational and health services for infants and toddlers — home visits and early intervention services — at a time when families may need them the most. Home visiting programs send nurses, social workers and other trained professionals to the homes of low-income parents to give health and early education advice. They also help children meet milestones, like crawling, picking up...

From Native Organizers Alliance, April 22, 2020 We hope you and your loved ones are in good health. During this Coronavirus pandemic, we are all finding ways to support our families and communities in difficult circumstances. Native communities are adopting new ways of meeting the urgent needs of our communities, both physically and spiritually. We are using digital tools to maintain community and ceremony while physically separating for our safety. Please join us for a video conference to...

By Yasmin Anwar, Berkeley News, April 17, 2020 The intense social isolation, stress and uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 is shaping up to be its own mental health pandemic. Already, spikes in post-traumatic stress disorder are being documented among vulnerable populations, health workers and other front-line personnel. In the latest in a series of Berkeley Conversations: COVID-19 live webcasts, UC Berkeley psychologists Dacher Keltner , Sonia Bishop and Frank Worrell offered advice on how to...

Apply to be a part of ACEs Aware's California ACES Learning & Quality Improvement Collaborative (CALQIC) In partnership with the UCSF Center to Advance Trauma-Informed Healthcare and other key partners, we'll select 15 organizations across California to participate in this 18-month learning collaborative to support clinics in screening for and responding to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in children and adults. This is a challenging time, and we know that many of our health care...

By ACEs Aware, April 21, 2020 The physician speakers will share opportunities and guidance for providing trauma-informed care via telehealth as well as resources providers can offer to patients to help mitigate the impact of COVID-19 related stress on physical and mental health. This is particularly critical for patients who have experienced, or who are currently experiencing, Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) or other adversities. Futures Without Violence will share resources providers...

By Nate Gartrell and Annie Sciacca, The Mercury News, April 16, 2020 Arrests that result in jail bookings have dropped to staggeringly low rates throughout Contra Costa, in response to state and local directives aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19 in the county jail system. Over the past 30 days, the rate of new inmates being booked in Contra Costa jails fell by 84 percent, from a norm of roughly 60 per day to roughly 10 per day, Sheriff David Livingston told the county Board of...

By Rob Waters, California Health Care Foundation, April 16, 2020 In a decade at the Sacramento-based Center for Connected Health Policy , Mei Wa Kwong has had to answer a basic question more times than she can count: “What, exactly, is telehealth?” And until recently, she doesn’t recall the word being used so frequently by a president of the United States. Telehealth, previously known as telemedicine, generally refers to the use of interactive video and audio to diagnose, treat, or...

By Terry Gross, National Public Radio, April 9, 2020 Chesa Boudin's radical leftist parents were imprisoned when he was a toddler. Now he's working to reduce the inmate population in San Francisco — and worrying about his dad, who remains in prison. TERRY GROSS, HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. It's difficult or impossible to practice social distancing in an overcrowded prison, which is dangerous not only for the people who are incarcerated but also for the guards and other prison...

From Heal SF, April 2020 (See attached file for guidelines.) On behalf of Mayor Breed, Our Children Our Families Council, and all those most impacted by our COVID 19 response, I’d like to take a moment to thank you for your time, expertise, commitment and passion that you brought to the Heal SF Clinical Advisory Body. Without your gracious contributions, we would not have guidelines to support our first responders and those most impacted by this unprecedented circumstance. The guidelines...