Blog

The California Department of Public Health, Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (CDPH/IVPB) and the California Department of Social Services, Office of Child Abuse Prevention (CDSS/OCAP)’s, Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative invites your participation in a webinar entitled, “Creating Compelling Messaging with ACEs Data” on Wednesday, January20 th from 10:30 AM – 12:00 PM. This webinar will feature presentations from Shaddai Martinez Cuestas, MPH, Strategic Communications Specialist...

Hello ACEs Connection Community! My name is Skylar Hanson, I am a Doctor of Public Health candidate at Claremont Graduate University in Southern California. The focus of my dissertation is on the implementation of California's ACEs Aware Initiative and how the initiative navigated and responded to the needs of a COVID-19 impacted society (as well as other stressors of this year). I have been interviewing a range of participants from backgrounds of family medicine, pediatricians, social work,...

By City News Service, Los Angeles Daily News, December 10, 2020 The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday, Dec. 9, to create a new department to assist families who were already vulnerable to economic uncertainty before the COVID-19 pandemic and are far more so now. Council President Nury Martinez and Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez proposed establishing the Department for Families, Children and Community Investment in October. “COVID-19 has demonstrated that in the face of a crisis,...

December 9 ACEs and Parenting Resources will be available in 7-10 days. https://www.avahealth.org/resources/california-aces-academy/summary.html

By Kenyon Lee Whitman and Brianna M. Harvey, The Imprint, December 2, 2020 Black foster youth are caught in a nexus of incarceration which is formed by their engagement with child welfare, education and policing. Our recent brief published by UCLA’s Black Male Institute on Los Angeles County public schools serves to elucidate these grim realities. California public schools educate over 46,000 K-12 students in foster care, and about a third of them attend Los Angeles County public schools. An...

The Transform Trauma with ACEs Sciences FREE Film Festival continues this weekend. Please join us to watch parts 1, 2, and 3 of the PBS Whole People series at your convenience, on ACEs Connection, by clicking play on the videos below: Whole People | 101 | Childhood Trauma | Episode 1 (27 min) Preview: Whole People | 102 | Healing Communities | Preview | Episode 2 Whole People | 102 |Healing Communities Episode 2 (27 min) Whole People | 103 |A New Response | Episode 3 (27 min) This is one of...

ACEs Aware Grant Opportunity to Support Trauma-Informed Networks of Care Informational Webinar The informational webinar will be held on December 11, 2020, from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Potential applicants are encouraged to submit questions for the webinar via email to info@acesaware.org by Noon on December 7, 2020 . The subject line of the email should read “Network of Care Informational Webinar.” Mark your calendar and join this Zoom link on webinar day. More information about the RFP and the...

During this extraordinary period of time, there is both an opportunity and a heightened need to examine our societal role in keeping families safely together. In this issue of insights, we provide a framework for prevention and family strengthening strategies that is guided by data on disparities in child welfare involvement, includes innovative county approaches, and offers perspectives from stakeholders including those with lived experience. Our goal is to help inform the many state and...

By Xenia Shih Bion, California Health Care Foundation, December 7, 2020 Taylor Nichols, MD — suited up in a mask, face shield, gown, and gloves — stood outside a patient’s room at Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Sacramento County, and he hesitated. An emergency room physician, Nichols was preparing to intubate the man, who was suspected of having an advanced case of COVID-19. Solidly built and struggling to breathe, the man begged, “Don’t let me die, Doc.” Nichols treats such patients...

By Carolyn Jones, EdSource, December 9, 2020 Responding to a surge in student anxiety and depression — exacerbated by the pandemic — a state commission has called for California schools to move quickly to become “wellness centers” addressing mental and physical health needs among K-12 students and their families. Through agreements with nonprofits and government health agencies, schools would offer psychological services, basic medical care and other services to help families navigate trauma...

By Jill Tucker, San Francisco Chronicle, December 9, 2020 Teacher Liz Duffield was terrified to return to her classroom in September, scared she could spread COVID-19 to her students or get it from them. Three months later, the Novato teacher is still afraid of the virus, but not inside her classroom. It feels safer there than in the community, she said, maybe safer than in her own home. Recent data out of Marin County, where nearly 80% of public and private schools are open, show her hunch...

We are thrilled to announce a new and important national policy brief: Coverage of Services to Promote Children’s Mental Health , developed in partnership with Mental Health America and the Well Being Trust. The paper expertly lays out an analysis of how current state Medicaid and commercial health insurance payment policies fail to adequately reimburse for effective interventions to promote positive child and family mental health. It underscores that this failure violates current law and...