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Across the state, families have fled fires in the dark of night amid howling winds; thousands have huddled in evacuation centers, their cars packed with valuables. It smells like smoke, and ash drifts through the air. School days are canceled, routines disrupted and children are suffering mentally — even if they’re not physically at risk from a fire, mental health counselors and parents said. School healthcare workers said the increase in destructive annual wildfires comes at a time when...

By Matt Tinoco, LAist, October, 29, 2019 More than 1,000 people died while experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County in 2018. That's nearly double the number of homeless people who died in 2013, according to a report released Tuesday by county health officials which looked at deaths within that six-year time period. Heart disease, drug and alcohol overdoses, and transportation-related injuries were the most common causes of death. Even when adjusting for the increase in the number of...

By Emily Estus, Special to CalMatters, October 28, 2019 This summer, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the California Legislature passed a $214 billion budget that includes $5.3 million earmarked for improving mental health services in the University of California system. Students returning to campus this fall might cheer that a long-underfunded issue is finally getting state attention and, more importantly, an injection of cash. Sadly, that’s not the whole story. Here’s why: This is only a stopgap, a...

By Lisa Halverstadt, Voice of San Diego, October 29, 2019 County supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday to move forward with efforts to create a network of behavioral health hubs and crisis units countywide, starting in North County and central San Diego. The goal is to shift the county’s mental health system from one overtaxed by emergency room visits and hospital stays to a more efficient chronic care system that helps patients stabilize before they fall into crisis. “It’s not just one...

By Sarah Mervosh, The New York Times, October 28, 2019 With wildfires raging up and down the state of California on Monday, smoke filled the air in many places, ash fell from the sky, and residents were once again left to wonder whether the very air they were breathing was safe. The largest, the Kincade fire in Sonoma County north of San Francisco, nearly doubled in size in 24 hours and was just 5 percent contained on Monday, prompting volunteers downwind in the Bay Area to scramble to hand...

By Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Kaiser Health News, October 29, 2019 Dorothy Hammack had planned to wash her thick, dark hair in the kitchen sink Friday morning. She couldn't yet shower, due to the incision on her breast from a biopsy a few days before. Her doctor had already called to let her know the results: She had breast cancer. She was supposed to be researching treatment options and organizing doctor appointments. Instead, Hammack, 79, was standing in her pajamas in the parking lot of a...

By Sasha Khokha, KQED, October 25, 2019 Classical music plays, silk curtains blow in the wind and comfy couches offer a place to curl up with a book. There are wooden toys, colorful magnetic blocks, and crayons organized by color in glass jars. Children use light projectors to make patterns and shapes on the walls. It may sound like a high-end early childhood education center in California, but this is Tijuana. The students and their parents have fled violence in Central America, or other...

By Emily Baumgartner, Los Angeles Times, October 27, 2019 Most experts agree that sweet flavors like cotton candy and mango help entice teens to try their first-ever puff on an electronic cigarette. But what keeps them coming back? Flavors appear to play a role in that too, according to a new study of Los Angeles high school students. Those who vaped with flavors other than tobacco and menthol were more likely to maintain their habit over the long term — and they took more puffs each time...

By Anna Maria Barry-Jester, California Healthline, October 28, 2019 Farm laborers in yellow safety vests walked through neatly arranged rows of grapes Friday, harvesting the last of the deep purple bundles that hung from the vines, even as the sky behind them was dark with soot. Over the hill just behind them, firetrucks and first responders raced back and forth from a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection staging area, working to contain a wildfire raging through the rugged...

In January of 2019, the Prevention Cabinet of the County Welfare Directors Association of California, the California Office of Child Abuse Prevention (OCAP), and Strategies 2.0 co-hosted the Prevention Summit. The purpose of the Prevention Summit was to develop or strengthen a public-private partnership for strengthening families, begin or strengthen a countywide prevention plan, and commit to an ongoing collaborative process with clear action steps. Participants from 22 counties from across...

Amador, along with a handful of other counties, is leveraging state funding to grow the ranks of peer mental health providers. The scholarship program relies on workforce development funds from California’s Mental Health Services Act, which established a millionaire’s tax for mental health prevention and intervention in 2004. Monterey and San Bernardino counties also use the funds to train community members with real-life experience, with the goal of hiring them in county-run mental health...

By Joe Garofoli, The San Francisco Chronicle, October 25, 2019 California Secretary of State Alex Padilla will announce a first-in-the-nation partnership Friday with an LGBTQ civil rights group to train poll workers to make it easier for gender-nonconforming and transgender voters to cast ballots, The Chronicle has learned. In most cases, California voters are not required to show identification to a polling-place worker. Still, many transgender and gender-nonconforming voters may be...