Blog

This Friday, September 23 , don’t miss the premiere of a compelling new documentary called Audrie and Daisy on Netflix. To kick-off the upcoming launch, we staged an unconventional but inspiring send-off with the help of the San Francisco Giants this past Sunday . It was our 19th Annual Strike Out Violence Day at AT&T Park, and this year, the Giants hosted the courageous families of Audrie Pott and Daisy Coleman, the two young women who are featured in the new film about two teenagers...

Three California schools are among 10 nationwide that were awarded $10 million each on Wednesday to “reimagine high school,” as part of a year-long contest backed by an organization headed by Laurene Powell Jobs. All three schools focus heavily on tailoring instruction to individual students, yet each have different goals and serve students in different parts of the state. The Summit Public Schools system plans to open a new campus in Oakland to help students explore career options. Vista...

Health leaders are challenging communities statewide to find creative, innovative ways to improve the health of all Californians. The California Health and Human Services Agency (CHHS) and California Department of Public Health (CDPH) today announced the second annual Innovation Challenge from Let’s Get Healthy California, a statewide collaborative effort to improve the health of every Californian. Innovation Challenge 2.0 encourages community and health advocates across the state to share...

SACRAMENTO – Farmworkers in the nation’s largest agricultural state will be entitled to the same overtime pay as most other hourly workers under a law that California Gov. Jerry Brown said Monday he had signed. The new law, which will be phased in beginning in 2019, is the first of its kind in the nation to end the 80-year-old practice of applying separate labor rules to agricultural laborers. California employers currently must pay time-and-a half to farmworkers after 10 hours in a day or...

Date: September 22, 2016 Time: 1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. PST This webinar will discuss the role of ACEs as a contributor to developing problem behaviors during adolescence and adulthood. ACEs occur as a result of trauma, i.e., violence, abuse, neglect, loss, disaster, war, and other emotionally harmful experiences. More and more communities are adopting a trauma-informed approach to prevent and treat the impacts of ACEs and the consequential problem behaviors, including substance use/misuse. SUD...

Part of the philosophy for creating a separate juvenile-justice system in the United States is the idea that the state can act as a parent, or parens patriae—protector, caretaker, disciplinarian—when a young person fails to respect the rights of others, commits petty or serious crimes, or shirks age-based societal norms by committing so-called status offenses. But parenting is hard. Even for the state. Sometimes the lessons learned with one generation benefit the next. Sometimes cultural...

When a national report was issued this summer that showed incarceration has largely replaced hospitalization for the severely mentally ill, the analysis reinforced what many counties across the country had been experiencing, including Riverside County. And according the Riverside County Jail Utilization Study conducted by CA Fwd, mentally ill offenders stayed in Riverside County jails for longer periods of time and were booked more often. The national report and the Riverside County jail...

Counties across California are stepping up efforts to ensure that students going to schools in juvenile detention facilities make it back to their communities — and have a fighting chance to succeed in school and life. In addition to help from caseworkers and counselors, many counties are hiring additional support staff, called “transition specialists,” to help students bridge the gap between “court schools,” which they may attend for a few weeks, and an educational placement allowing them...

Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Issues New Guidelines to Encourage Secure Sharing of Information Between Schools and Child Welfare Agencies to Better Serve Foster Youth Attorney General Kamala D. Harris today announced that the California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Children’s Justice (BCJ), the California Department of Education (CDE), and the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) have jointly developed statewide guidelines for school districts, county offices of...

University of California officials Monday announced that UC Davis will establish the West Coast’s first research center dedicated to preventing gun violence. UC President Janet Napolitano said the center will be led by Dr. Garen Wintemute, an internationally known epidemiologist and emergency room physician who gathers and analyzes gun violence data with an eye toward prevention. The new California Firearm Violence Research Center will be funded by $5 million in taxpayer funds allocated over...

Who are we and what do we stand for in criminal and juvenile justice reform? Against the backdrop of a contentious election season and robust conversations about justice reforms that have included proposals to build private prisons, the Children’s Defense Fund-California (CDF-CA) is taking a pause to revisit and rearticulate the values that guide our work as youth justice advocates. What are the values that guide us in creating better alternatives to broken justice systems for youth? What...

California would become the first state to require farmers to pay overtime to field workers and fruit pickers under a bill approved by the legislature on Monday and sent to Gov. Jerry Brown for his approval. The bill, which passed on a mostly party-line vote, would phase in overtime pay for farmworkers from 2019 to 2022. Small farms that employ 25 or fewer workers would have an additional three years to phase in the pay. If signed into law by Brown, California, the largest U.S. agricultural...