Blog

By Lisa Pritzker, Cal Matters, May 25, 2021 Decades ago, as a hotline volunteer with Safe & Sound , I spoke with exhausted parents in crisis because there were no preventive supports to proactively alleviate their poverty and trauma. As a volunteer for the Child and Adolescent Psych Services Department at San Francisco General Hospital , I witnessed traumatized children waiting for mental health visits in a cramped, dark waiting room next to adult patients in psychiatric distress. The...

By American Psychiatric Association, May 19, 2021 The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Tuesday announced plans to establish a Behavioral Health Coordinating Council focused on collaboration and strategic planning across the department. The council will “ensure that millions of Americans receive prevention, early intervention, treatment, and recovery services for mental illness and substance use disorders,” an APA news release stated. APA applauded the Biden-Harris...

Medical Advocacy in the Face of Discrimination presented by Sharon Cooper, MD, FAAP Thursday, May 27, 2021 | 12:00 pm - 1:30 pm (PT) There is a significant impact on the body, mind, and spirit when racism is a part of a child and adolescent’s life experiences. The historical impact of systemic racism affects how families of color will parent their children, and at times intentionally overlook discriminatory treatment for fear of retaliation against their child. This realization has not been...

Join us for the next A Better Normal community discussion series where we envision and create a trauma-informed society together. Wed, May 26, 2021, 12pm PDT >>Register Here<< We will be learning from Sarah Marikos and Joy Thomas of the ACE Resource Network about the wide impact their Number Story campaign is having through the use of strategic partnerships. This intervention helps individuals understand their ACE numbers and connects them with the resources and tools to heal.

From Center on the Developing Child, Harvard University, May 2021 The scientific evidence is clear and growing: racism imposes unique and substantial stressors on the daily lives of families raising young children of color. Understanding how these stressors affect child health and development provides a compelling framework for new ideas about how communities, policies, programs, and funding streams might confront and dismantle these inequities and build a stronger future for us all. This...

I am reaching out to let you know that we’re trying to get telephonic patient visits to become permanent in California. Access to care is a very big deal in our rural areas. California Primary Care Association is making this topic their key initiative to take to the state this year to try and keep telephone visits as an option for patients past COVID. If you’re interested in helping, please take a few minutes to fill out their autogenerated email form (Links below) that will send the message...

Safe & Sound is excited to share The Economics of Child Abuse in 2020: A Study of California & Its Counties . On this website, you can learn about the cost of child maltreatment in every community in California and how to take action to protect kids, strengthen families, and build communities. We would love your feedback on the site. Please take 5 minutes to complete our survey by Wednesday, June 2, so we can continue highlighting research and building tools that communities need.

The Essentials for Childhood Initiative would like to share a new resources titled, “Creating Safe, Stable, Nurturing Relationships and Environments for Children.” This new resource is intended to elevate primary prevention strategies that support creating Safe, Stable, Nurturing Relationships and Environments (SSNR&Es) for children and highlight 2019 data from the Awareness, Commitment, and Norms Survey provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This document was...

From The Burke Foundation, May 19, 2021 Interview with Dr. Nadine Burke Harris & Dave Ellis We recently sat down with Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, California’s first surgeon general, and Dave Ellis, the first executive director of the Office of Resilience at the New Jersey Department of Children and Families. A pioneering voice on prevention, early identification, and treatment of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), Dr. Burke Harris gained national prominence with her viral 2015 TED talk...

On May 14, Governor Gavin Newsom announced the May Revision of his State Fiscal Year 2021-2022 budget proposal. The May Revision supports vital services that reinforce the state’s commitment to preserve and improve the overall health and well-being of all Californians, while operating within a responsible budgetary structure. The May Revision includes a number of proposals designed to advance and augment the impact of ACEs Aware , as well as proposals relevant to supporting the goals and...

With your help, we can ensure that state leaders make even stronger investments in the systems that serve kids, and enact a final budget agreement that does right by all children and youth in California. Please sign on to this letter urging Governor Newsom and the Legislature to prioritize dollars in the state budget for supports for kids, paying special attention to investments in child care, school-based mental health, and for children in foster care. [ Please click here for more...

By Hong Truong, California Health Care Foundation, May 20, 2021 The COVID-19 pandemic has caused more than 60,000 deaths and nearly 3.7 million infections in California, a devastating event that vividly underscores the deep-seated health inequities faced by the Latinx and Black communities. The coronavirus methodically demonstrated the need for California to reengineer its health care system to eliminate those disparities and provide better care for everyone. High on the list of needed...