Tagged With "Researchers Call for Overhaul"
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2020 Child Health, Education, and Care Summit [apps.ccfc.ca.gov]
By First 5 of California, October 31, 2019 We invite you to join us for another outstanding Summit at the beautiful Hotel Irvine in Irvine, California, on February 3–5, 2020. The Summit theme, “Equity in Action: Elevating Children, Families, and California’s Workforce,” represents the natural evolution of this statewide event – from building partnerships, to promoting collective impact, to providing leadership around critical programs and investments designed to benefit young children and...
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37th Annual Child Abuse Prevention Symposium Recap
"Speak Out! Confronting the Culture of Child Sexual Abuse and Secrecy" was the theme of Santa Clara County's 37th Annual Child Abuse Prevention Symposium which featured a Keynote conversation with Olympic Gold Medal winning gymnast and current UCLA Assistant Gymnastics Coach Jordyn Wieber. Jordyn, and other athletes and survivors of former USA Gymnastics team doctor and serial child sex abuser Larry Nassar, earlier spoke to a U.S. Senate Subcommittee about a “culture of silence” more...
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A CALL TO ACTION: COVID-19, HOUSING INSTABILITY, AND HEALTH
From Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative, March 23, 2020 COVID-19 – A Public Health Emergency Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a respiratory illness caused by a novel virus that is spreading rapidly across the globe. Currently, there are over 33,000 cases in the United Statesi . Globally, over 12,000 deaths have been attributed to the illness since it emerged three months ago. In the Bay Area, efforts to respond to the virus are increasing rapidly. On March 17, six Bay Area...
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A Group of Mothers, a Vacant Home, and a Win for Fair Housing [citylab.com]
By Brentin Mock, City Lab, January 28, 2020. On November 18, two women walked in through the unlocked door of a vacant three-bedroom house on West Oakland’s Magnolia Street, set up small bedrooms for themselves and their children, and settled in for an occupation designed to call attention to the Bay Area’s housing affordability crisis. Over the next few months, this collective of formerly unhoused women grew in size—and power. Calling themselves Moms 4 Housing , the group remained in 2928...
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A Guide to Creating “Safe Space” Policies for Early Childhood Programs [CLASP]
From the Center for Law and Social Policy Early childhood programs play an important role in the lives of young children and their families. But in our current immigration policy climate, families across the country are questioning whether it’s safe to attend or enroll. Providers can take steps to protect families’ safety and privacy by implementing policies that designate their facilities as a safe space from immigration enforcement. This guide explains federal agency guidance related to...
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A ‘hidden crisis’: Local leaders [Eureka, CA] call for collaboration to combat child poverty, trauma [Times-Standard.com]
A packed town hall meeting in Eureka on Thursday night called for greater collaboration by state and local agencies to address an issue that contributes to many challenges Humboldt County faces today — childhood poverty and trauma. North Coast state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), who hosted the meeting, said that despite California being the sixth largest economy in the world, childhood poverty rates have actually increased since the Great Recession began in 2007. In this way, he called...
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A Pathway to Prevention: Understanding root causes to help break the cycle of domestic violence [Blue Shield of California Foundation]
From Foundation Program Manager Jelissa Parham: Recently, I was in Oakland’s Chinatown neighborhood when I heard a couple fighting across the street from me. As I looked on, the man lunged toward the woman and began to choke her while her young toddler watched the entire scene, clutching a small toy. Instinctively, before I had time to process the possible consequences, I called out: “No! Stop! Don’t touch her!” The man released his hold, and I briefly thought the incident was over. But I...
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A Quest To Understand Adoption, Attachment, and Suicide
Join me and my guests, John Brooks and Nancy Newton Verrier, on “About Health.” Monday March 7th from 2-3PM on KPFA.org or 94.1FM. We will discuss, The Girl Behind the Door, A Father’s Quest to Understand His Daughter’s Suicide , by John Brooks. It provides a profound look into adoption, teenage suicide, and attachment issues. When John and Erika’s daughter Casey jumped off of the Golden Gate Bridge in 2008, John began to unravel a heartbreaking truth—Casey had been in pain since birth,...
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Attorney General Becerra Announces Final Regulations to Implement Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) (oag.ca.gov)
SACRAMENTO – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra today announced that the regulations drafted by the California Department of Justice (DOJ) for the collection of data pertaining to law enforcement stops under Assembly Bill 953 (AB 953), the Racial and Identity Profiling Act (RIPA) of 2015, are now final. Beginning July 1, 2018, law enforcement agencies, starting with the nine largest agencies, will begin collecting stop data and reporting the information to the DOJ. “Public safety is...
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Avoiding The ER: Paramedics Link Patients To Local Mental Health Treatment [CA Healthline and USA Today]
For Kelly Kjelstrom, plugging the gaps in mental health care can mean something as simple as a late-night taco and a friendly chat with a patient. Kjelstrom, 45, is a community paramedic in Modesto, California. Part of his job is to help psychiatric patients avoid the emergency room, where they can get “boarded” for days, until they are released or a bed opens up at an inpatient facility. When a 911 call involves a potential mental health crisis, specially trained paramedics like Kjelstrom...
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Big Ideas - Center for Violence Prevention Research [bigideas.ucdavis.edu]
From Big Ideas, University of California at Davis, May 2020 Dr. Garen Wintemute is a leading expert on gun violence as well as a practicing emergency medicine physician and the director of the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program. He and his colleagues will discuss the latest findings in developing evidence-based, non-partisan solutions to violence that will enable us to build safer communities. Date of event: May 27, 2020 12:00 PM [ Please click here to register .]
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Building Community Health
Dr Sandy Escobar is transforming healthcare in East Palo Alto, one family at a time.
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Bystander Intervention to stop anti-Asian/American and xenophobic harassment
As you know, anti-Asian and Asian American and xenophobic harassment are on the rise across the U.S. Unfortunately, anti-Asian and Asian American racism and xenophobia is not a new phenomenon. It has been part of our histories for a long time, and we have seen it manifested against different communities in many ways over the years. As the coronavirus pandemic escalates, we have seen more harassment, discrimination, and even violence directed at our communities. The Asian Americans Advancing...
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CA 3rd Annual API Mental Health Empowerment Conference in Fresno County
The purpose of the annual Asian & Pacific Islander Mental Health Empowerment Conference (APIMHEC) is to increase awareness of mental health concerns and to promote improvement of mental health services for Asian & Pacific Islander (API) communities. The 2019 APIMHEC Conference will be hosted by Fresno County's Department of Behavioral Health at Clovis Veteran's Memorial District. This conference will convene mental health service providers, consumers, family members, students,...
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CA Surgeon General and DHCS Launch ACEs Aware Initiative and Website
Join a live webinar with California Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke Harris and Dr. Karen Mark Medical Director, Department of Health Care Services for a Medi-Cal provider introduction to the new ACEs Aware Initiative and the www.ACEsAware.org website. The Office of the California Surgeon General and the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), in the first public unveiling of the initiative, will host a live webinar to share details of the new ACEs Aware Initiative for Medi-Cal providers...
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ACEs Aware Webinar: Trauma-informed practices to address stress from COVID-19
How can health care providers take care of themselves, their colleagues and their patients during this COVID-19 pandemic? First and foremost is recognizing how the pandemic can stir up trauma from the past, said Dr. Alicia Lieberman, a psychologist specializing in trauma. “COVID19 is reawakening traumatic reminders in many of us and in the families we work with. And that often makes it difficult for parents to protect themselves and their children,” she noted. Lieberman, the director of the...
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ACEs Policy Briefs in Justice, Education, and Health
The Collaborative is pleased to share three policy briefs on the impact of ACEs in the health, justice, and education systems including promising practices and recommended actions for change. These briefs were developed by members of the Illinois ACEs Response Collaborative—system leaders in Illinois who are working from an ACEs-informed lens to improve systems to prevent and mitigate trauma across generations. Rooted in social justice, these briefs are a call to action to move upstream,...
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Adversity and resiliency: The case for integrating ACEs and Strengthening Families approaches
Attached is the PowerPoint that was presented by Diane Kellegrew, Jane Stevens and Katie Albright in a webinar April 16. And below is the slide that ID's the presenters.
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Advocacy tools for influencing policy at the national, state, and local levels
The level of policy activity at all levels relating to ACEs-trauma-resilience has increased significantly over the last few years. The California Campaign to Counter Childhood Adversity (4CA) held its third Policymaker Education Day this year and has created a number of resources (included in this widget) designed to expand legislators’ knowledge of ACEs science and promote approaches to reduce and heal childhood adversity. In addition to California specific information on legislative and...
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Advocate for Early Childhood Programs in Your School District
California’s funding model for school districts is known as the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). Under LCFF, school districts have flexibility—and an unprecedented opportunity—to spend district dollars on early childhood education. Researchers, economists, and educators all agree: early childhood programs set kids up for success in school and in life. Now is the time for district leaders to make sure that students in your community are getting off to a strong start. And you can help...
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ACEs Science Champions Series: Allen Nishikawa: ACEs Storyteller Helps People Develop Their Resilience
Sonoma County ACEs Connection members Allen Nishikawa and Lena Hoffman at California Policymaker Education Day, 2018 Allen Nishikawa, a sansei, or third-generation Japanese American, majored in political science and American history at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where he participated in antiwar (Vietnam) marches. But it was his experience as a military brat — moving from school to school across the U.S. and even to Japan as a child — that shaped his own childhood experiences and...
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Announcing a New Parenting and ACEs Blog from Stress Health, an Initiative of the Center for Youth Wellness
Research shows that the right kind of support and care can mitigate the impact of toxic stress in children and help them bounce back.
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As California Moves to Screen Children for Childhood Trauma, Poverty Has To Be Part of the Equation
In California, we are coming full circle in recognizing the connection between poverty and health.
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Assisted suicide: New California law to take effect June 9 (spcr.org)
Image: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images California's Legislature ended its special session on health care, meaning the state's assisted suicide will go into effect on June 9th. Under the law , signed by Gov. Brown in October , a patient who has been diagnosed as having six months or less to live can request that his doctor prescribe life-ending medication. The patient must make two oral requests at least 15 days apart, along with a written request witnessed by at least two people, one of whom...
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CalFresh Healthy Living Programs
CalFresh food benefits are available to individuals and families who have been impacted by COVID-19. CalFresh provides monthly food benefits based on household income and expenses at the time of application. Even if temporary, individuals and families who have experienced a change in their circumstances may apply for CalFresh through one of California’s 58 counties. Californian’s can visit GetCalFresh.org to apply or call 1-877-847-3663 (FOOD) to be connected to their local county social...
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California Bets on Big Data to Predict Child Abuse [The Chronicle of Social Change]
California, home to the largest foster care population in the country, has publicly declared its intention to pursue the use of so-called “predictive analytics” to foresee and presumably prevent child abuse. California Department of Social Services (CDSS) Deputy Director Greg Rose, who oversees the state’s foster care system, says that the state’s new predictive risk modeling project is designed to give social workers better information about past child welfare cases when they first field a...
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California healthcare providers adapt ACEs screening from in-person to virtual environment
Dr. Amy Shekarchi, a pediatrician based in Los Angeles, CA, was helping to lead the rollout of ACEs screening among 50 health care providers at six clinics affiliated with the L.A. County Department of Health Services when the COVID-19 pandemic hit—days before she was set to launch the effort. “We had trained everybody in doing face-to-face [ACEs screening], and when COVID-19 happened we thought, let’s not throw the screening out. Everybody was ready,” says Shekarchi, who is the pediatric...
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California Hopes to Place More Probation Youth in Foster Homes Like This (chronicleofsocialchange.org)
Starcania Ford’s first call came not too long after she had completed two months of background checks and trainings. Could she come and pick up a young man waiting at the juvenile delinquency court near downtown Los Angeles? Ford, 38, who lives with her adult daughter, is the only licensed foster parent for probation youth in L.A. County. She’s part of a state initiative that has seen probation departments across the state jump headlong into the business of finding foster parents. The goal...
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California Indian Nations College opens, establishes degree program in partnership with local colleges (Indian Country Today)
California Indian Nations College established through a philanthropic $3 million gift from the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians; partners include College of the Desert, University of California Riverside, and Cal State San Bernardino . “Our mission is to focus on encouraging higher education for Native Americans and non-Native students,” said Darrell Mike, Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians chairman. “Native American enrollment in higher education has dropped over the years;...
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California leaders call for release of detained Cambodian, Vietnamese immigrants (mercurynews.com)
California leaders are calling on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to release an estimated 200 Cambodian and Vietnamese immigrants who advocates say were recently detained in the Bay Area and beyond in never-before-seen roundups. Their contributions are particularly critical to California, they argue, the state with the largest Asian-American and Pacific Islander populations, including the largest Cambodian and Vietnamese communities. “Many Southeast Asian Americans are survivors of...
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California Legislature Orders Juvenile Justice Data Overhaul [JJIE.org]
Alex Sanchez knows the temptations of joining gangs for young Central American immigrants. He fled to the United States in 1979 as an unaccompanied minor (he was 7, his brother 5) to escape the Salvadoran civil war. Eventually he got involved in gang violence, went to prison and was deported before returning to the United States illegally. He was granted political asylum in 2002 and in 2006 became the executive director of Homies Unidos , a nonprofit violence- and gang-prevention...
Calendar Event
Toward a Trauma-Informed Northern California, April 18th
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Violent Crime Up & Property Crime Down In CA & The U.S., Say New FBI Stats: But What Do The Numbers Mean? (witnessla.org)
On Monday, the FBI released its full crime stats for 2016, which showed violent crime up 4.1 percent in the U.S. over the FBI numbers for 2015. Pfaff, a Professor of Law at Fordham University Law School, was one of several academic and law enforcement figures who took part in a Monday morning conference call about the FBI stats. The call was sponsored by the Criminal Justice Policy Program at Harvard Law School, and Fair and Just Prosecution , a project that supports and inter-connects...
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'Warm' Hotlines Deliver Help Before Mental Health Crisis Heats Up [khn.org]
By Stephanie Stephens, Kaiser Health News, December 9, 2019 A lonely and anxious Rebecca Massie first called the Mental Health Association of San Francisco “warmline” during the 2015 winter holidays. “It was a wonderful call,” said Massie, now 38 and a mental health advocate. “I was laughing by the end, and I got in the holiday spirit.” Massie, a San Francisco resident, later used the line multiple times when she needed additional support, then began to volunteer there. [ Please click here...
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Webinar - Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) and Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Prevention
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...
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Webinar: Building Transformational Resilience for Climate Change Traumas and Toxic Stresses
Live Webinar: Building Transformational Resilience for Climate Change Traumas and Toxic Stresses Monday, October 28 th , 2019 12:00-1:30 PM PDT You will learn: how climate change creates personal, family, and community traumas and toxic stresses; how those traumatic stressors trigger feedbacks that expand and aggravate ACEs and many other person, social, community, and societal maladies; why current approaches are woefully inadequate to address what is already occurring and rapidly steaming...
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Webinar covered how to build trauma-informed connections via telehealth
When Dr. Erika Roshanravan, a family physician with CommuniCare in Woodland, CA, thinks back to her patient visits prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, one way she drew their deep-seated concerns was to ask the reason for the visit and to interject throughout, “Is there anything else?” And it’s asking that question during phone and video visits that has also helped her understand the true reason for her patients’ needs now, she told people who attended an ACEs Aware webinar on April 29 entitled:...
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Webinar recording available: Making Meaningful Change—Addressing ACEs through Public Policy
On February 18, 2020, nationally recognized experts discussed policy and advocacy strategies on local, state, and national levels using evidence from studies they have conducted with legislators and the general public. Speakers shared advocacy and messaging "how to’s" including communicating the effects of structural racism as an ACE, fostering equity as an essential component of resilience, and leveraging the power of community-based ACE, trauma and resilience networks to inform policy.
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Webinar Slides and Recording: The Human Impact of Climate Change
Recorded live November 13, 2019. Find the slides attached below. Speaker: Elaine Miller-Karas, MSW, LCSW, Executive Director and Co-founder, Trauma Resource Institute. Guest: Kelly Doty, MA, Strengthening Families Program Manager, Youth for Change Host: Carey Sipp, Southeast Community Facilitator, ACEs Connection. Climate change emergencies are real and the human toll during and in the aftermath impact children, teens and adults. This webinar will hear from Kelly Doty, a survivor, who lost...
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Webinar Slides and Recording: Transformational Resilience for Climate Change Traumas and Toxic Stresses with Bob Doppelt
Recorded live October 28, 2019. Find the slides attached below. The webinar recording: You will learn: how climate change creates personal, family, and community traumas and toxic stresses; how those traumatic stressors trigger feedbacks that expand and aggravate ACEs and many other person, social, community, and societal maladies; why current approaches are woefully inadequate to address what is already occurring and rapidly steaming toward us and why prevention is the only realistic...
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Whom do we call to report the mistreatment of children by the federal government? [washingtonpost.com]
By Nadine Burke Harris, Washington Post, July 11, 2019. Nadine Burke Harris is the surgeon general of California. Children in dirty clothes who haven’t been bathed in days. Eight-year-olds caring for toddlers out of necessity. Kids deprived of the safe, stable and nurturing care that’s fundamental to their health and well-being. As a pediatrician who has spent my career working to address childhood trauma, I’ve unfortunately seen it all. And I’ve had to make my share of reports to Child...
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Why California’s Once-Dismissed Idea to Give Everyone a Paycheck Is Gaining Ground [ZocaloPublicSquare.org]
Do you want your ham and eggs, California? It is one of the oldest and most enduring ideas in our state: Government should provide everyone with a minimum amount of money on a regular basis. It goes back to the 1930s, when Californians narrowly rejected the so-called “Ham and Eggs” proposals to give Californians a $30 check every Thursday. Now, this notion is back, a subject of books and op-eds and speeches, especially in the Bay Area, and with some bipartisan political momentum.
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Wildfires, power outages cause unprecedented healthcare disruption in California (sacbee.com)
Healthcare leaders told The Bee that they are confronting a level of disruption to delivering care and running their businesses that they have never seen in their careers as a result of the California wildfires and Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s planned blackouts . “I actually have never experienced a power outage where we were on emergency generator backup for 40 hours or more,” said Dr. Brian Evans , the chief executive officer at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital in Grass Valley. “We’ve had...
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Wisconsin state agencies end year one of trauma-informed learning community; goal is to be first trauma-informed state
Here in California, many people think that it’s only liberal Democrats who have a corner on championing the science of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and putting it into practice. That might be because people who use ACEs science don’t expel or suspend students, even if they’re throwing chairs and hurling expletives at the teacher. They ask "What happened to you?" rather than "What's wrong with you?" as a frame when they create juvenile detention centers where kids don’t fight, reduce...
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Women’s Well-Being Index, interactive map [California Budget and Policy Center]
California Women's Well-Being Index In Partnership With the Women's Foundation of California Women's Well-Being Index: Overall When women thrive, their families and communities prosper . Yet despite decades of progress, women still face persistent disparities on a range of issues, from economic security to health to participation in political leadership. By viewing women’s well-being as encompassing various distinct yet interrelated components, policymakers, advocates, service providers, and...
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You Can't Be Trauma-Informed If You Can't See the Trauma
Trauma-informed care should be like universal precautions – in the same way you wouldn’t clean up a blood spill without wearing gloves, you should always assume that someone has experienced trauma and treat them accordingly. Only it doesn’t happen that way. Once our indignation or any other parts of our wounded selves come into play, that usually goes out of the window unless you have been conditioned to wear a trauma-informed lens. And even then, there will be times we fail. Let me give you...
Ask the Community
Call for Presenters: Early Education Conference
The California Council of Parent Participation Nursery Schools (CCPPNS) hosts the premier early education conference for the cooperative preschool community in California. The 2018 Conference, "Time to Connect," will be coordinated by the the San Francisco Council of Parent Participation Nursery School (SFCPPNS). When: March 9 & 10, 2018 Where: Hotel Kabuki, San Francisco CA This early education convention draws parents and teachers from around the state of California and is open to all,...
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Shelters, cars and crowded rooms - Housing crisis forces more students into homelessness (edsource.org)
As California's housing costs continue to soar, more and more children like Alison are suffering the severest of consequences: No place to call home. Since 2014, the number of homeless children in California has jumped 20 percent. In the most recently released data, 202,329 young people are living in cars, motels, shelters, on the street or in crowded homes shared with other families. That's just over 3 percent of the enrolled K-12 students, more than twice the national rate, but the actual...