Blog

For the first time, a California governor has created a position in his office focused on early education. Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Giannina Pérez as his Senior Policy Advisor for Early Childhood. Peréz previously worked for Early Edge California and Children Now, both well-known children’s advocacy organizations. As an advocate, she worked to expand training for preschool teachers and child care providers to better support children who speak languages other than English at home. She also...

Around California, people with mental illness—and their family members—describe pleading with insurance providers for treatment. Their stories share an underlying premise: Despite policy advances in the past two decades intended to compel insurance companies to provide patients with equivalent levels of care for physical and mental illnesses, the reality on the ground still looks very different. A statewide poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the California Health Care Foundation found...

Imagine identifying a toxin so potent it could rewire a child’s brain and erode his immune system. A substance that, in high doses, tripled the risk of heart disease and lung cancer and reduced life expectancy by 20 years. And then realizing that tens of millions of American children had been exposed. Dr. @Nadine Burke Harris, California’s newly appointed surgeon general, will tell you this is not a hypothetical scenario. She is a leading voice in a movement trying to transform our...

March 14, 2019 Dear Resilient Sacramento Members, The ACEs Connection Resilient Sacramento Community is working on a Proclamation for the Board of Supervisors/Chair’s approval and signature to designate May 22 nd as Adverse Childhood Experiences & Resilience Awareness and Action Day. As a member of this Community, I have been working on this effort and am thrilled to report there are similar efforts in progress or passed in cities, counties, and states across the country, including the...

Please join us on Thursday, March 21st for a special virtual screening of Broken Places , the latest U.S. documentary on early childhood trauma and resilience. The film will be offered via a private Vimeo link with passcode to all registered members of ACEs Connection, for free, accessible in the United States and internationally. REGISTER TODAY: To register, please visit : https://goo.gl/forms/apdoINwgtQmydEXK2 The viewing portal for the film will open on Vimeo at 6am EST and close at 11pm...

Black History Month has come and gone. It is a month that reminds us of the resilience, fortitude and strength black Americans have exhibited to stay alive and thrive in this country. Black women in particular have borne the brunt of adverse experiences created by the nation’s racist foundations. While significant strides have been made, black women continue to suffer needlessly and disproportionately from the seeds of white supremacy that many of us continuously work to uproot. The issue of...

On Wednesday morning, 737 people on death row in California learned that the state's governor will refuse to let the state kill them during his time in office. With an executive order, newly elected Governor Gavin Newsom placed a moratorium on the death penalty in the country's most populous state. "Our death penalty system has been—by any measure—a failure," Newsom said in prepared remarks . "The intentional killing of another person is wrong. And as governor, I will not oversee the...

You are invited to participate in the second annual "Kids' Day at the Capitol" event put on by the California Office of Child Abuse Prevention (OCAP) on Thursday, April 11, 2019 at the California State Capitol. Family resource centers, nonprofit organizations, public agencies, child abuse prevention centers, healthcare providers, and others working to strengthen families are invited to host a booth with a child-friendly activity and resources for families and community members. Help us...

On March 19, 2019, from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m., DHCS will hold a webinar on the Value Based Payment (VBP) Program. DHCS released its VBP proposal on March 8, 2019, for public comment. Information about the proposals can be found here . Comments are due by March 22, 2019. Value Based Payments – For FY 2019-20, the Governor’s Budget proposes a VBP through Medi-Cal managed care health plans (MCPs) that will provide incentive payments to providers for meeting specific measures aimed at improving...

On March 12, 2019, from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) will hold a webinar on Developmental and Trauma Screenings. DHCS released its Developmental and Trauma Screenings proposals on March 8, 2019, for public comment. Information about the proposals can be found here . Comments are due by March 22, 2019. Developmental Screenings – For Fiscal Year (FY) 2019-20, the Governor’s Budget proposes to use $60 million (50 percent Proposition 56 funds/50 percent Federal...

30 years ago, Dr. Shapiro was walking through a park when she noticed that her eyes started to move from side-to-side rapidly when she was thinking about something upsetting. Then she noticed that when these thoughts came up again, they didn't have the same power to upset her. That was the beginning of what has now evolved into an evidence-based practice for resolving trauma. At the Echo conference in Los Angeles on March 18 & 19, 2019, you will learn about EMDR from Ana Gomez, who was...

The California Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative launched a new set of child adversity and resilience data indicators on Kidsdata.org Furthermore, the initiative created state and local dashboards to bring together sources of data that represent a broader set of life experiences than originally reflected in the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study, such as living in poverty or dangerous neighborhoods. The goal was to make these data widely available and provide training on how...