Tagged With "income gap"
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2019 Starting & Growing Resilient Communities: Online & In Real Life (IRL) Webinar Series
ACEs Connection presents, "Starting & Growing Resilient Communities: Online & In Real Life (IRL)" , an interactive webinar training series focused on developing existing and potential online community managers and IRL ACEs champions. If you are not a current online community manager, please know that ALL are welcome. This series is dedicated to providing insight into creating sustainable and effective online & IRL ACEs intiatives. "Starting & Growing Resilient Communities:...
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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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5 bright lights in LA County that are helping Latino students achieve [laschoolreport.com]
Despite making up the majority of California’s public school students, Latinos are still facing major challenges to achieving in school and graduating from college, a new report finds. But the report also highlights five bright spots in the LA County area — schools, districts, and programs that are helping Latinos succeed. In Los Angeles County, two school districts, a high school, and an early education center are modeling what needs to be done to close the achievement gap for Latino...
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A Guide to Increase Mental Health Services for Students - Project Cal-Well, CA Dept of Education, 2018
This guide is created by Project Cal-Well, with input from the Student Mental Health Policy Workgroup, to assist schools and districts to build capacity to better address mental health challenges among students. Learn about Project Cal-Well See Guide attached.
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Board of State and Community Corrections Awards $96m In Prop 47 Grants
SACRAMENTO (June 13, 2019) – The Board of State and Community Corrections today approved grant awards from a voter initiative that reduces from felonies to misdemeanors certain low-level crimes and directs state savings to programs primarily focused on mental health and substance-use disorder treatment. It is the second round of Proposition 47 funding approved by the Board, to which voters allocated the bulk of the state savings for rehabilitative grants targeting Prop 47-impacted...
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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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Butte County's low-income children suffer in coronavirus pandemic [chicoer.com]
By Natalie Hanson, Chico Enterprise-Record, May 11, 2020 It’s not unusual to see Chapman Elementary’s Principal Mike Allen driving through neighborhoods in the Chapman neighborhood, knocking on students’ doors and bringing food, toiletries and other supplies. Since the California shelter-in-place order, Allen said to keep making physical contact with children, he has made home visits to about 20 households. After calling every family, the school is trying to get back in touch with 15-20...
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CA looks to cast broader safety net for foster youth [CabinetReport.com]
(Calif.) Legislation set for a final Senate floor vote sometime in the next week would significantly recast the public school systems safety net for foster youth by, among other things, creating regional support networks overseen by...
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Access to civil justice in California remains elusive. It could be an opportunity (calmatters.org)
More than half of California households had problems last year that are civil legal issues, but nearly 70% of them received no legal help. That is one of the stark findings of the State Bar’s California Justice Gap Study . The study, which surveyed nearly 4,000 California adults, spotlights a harsh reality: There is an enormous gap between the need for civil legal services and most people’s ability to access legal help. Think this is only a problem for low-income Californians? Think again.
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ACEs Science Champion Series: Dr. Angela Bymaster: This Faith-Based Physician Integrates ACEs Science with Healing Arts
Dr. Angela Bymaster, a family physician at Washington Elementary School in San Jose, CA, operates her clinic in a portable unit on the school property.
Because the unit faces students as they are dropped off by their families, she gets to “pick up the kids” before they are sent to the clinic, practicing “upstream medicine.”
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Addressing the Educational Gap in Whittier [kcet.org]
By Neighborhood Data for Social Change, February 10, 2020 The California Department of Public Health reported in 2017 that completing a formal education is a crucial step on the pathway to securing fulfilling employment that can provide food, housing, transportation and other livelihood improvements essential to a healthy life. However, educational attainment differs across economic and racial lines. Since 2003, the achievement gap in California between low-income students and their more...
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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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Agencies Combine to Provide some Health Services for Pescaderans [hmbreview.com]
By Ashlyn Rollins-Koons, Half Moon Bay Review, December 26, 2019 There are no dentists, primary care doctors, psychologists or pediatricians in Pescadero. The nearest emergency room is at least 30 minutes away. For some who don’t have the resources or time, that could mean doctor appointments are few and far between. Puente de la Costa Sur has been working to fill this gap by partnering with San Mateo County and health providers to provide critical services to the South Coast that residents...
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An Opportunity the Office of Surgeon General Can't Pass Up
I don't know about you, but I've talked to dozens of people applying for the ACEs Aware RFP, due Feb. 10. Watching myself and my colleagues hustle and brainstorm on how to work together to submit ideas for this opportunity has been very inspiring. Although we have no idea how many grant awards will be made, we know that only a fraction of what must be hundreds of RFP submissions will be funded this year. It would be a tragedy to waste the efforts of those who will have spent many hours on...
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California Family Resource Association [strategiesca.org]
From Strategies 2.0, April 2020 The California Family Resource Association (CFRA) is pleased to announce a partnership with the state Office of Child Abuse Prevention (OCAP) to provide $3M in emergency relief funds for Family Resource Centers (FRCs) to respond to COVID-19. The purpose of the fund is to support FRCs to provide emergency services and supplies to children and families most at need and as soon as possible. Many FRCs are reporting that the gap in prevention services and supports...
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Using Meditation to Help Close the Achievement Gap [Well.Blogs.NYTimes.com]
Closing the so-called achievement gap between poor inner-city children and their more affluent suburban counterparts is among the biggest challenges for education reformers. The success of some schools’ efforts suggests that meditation might significantly improve children’s school performance – and help close that gap. In 2007, James Dierke, then the principal of the Visitacion Valley Middle School in a troubled neighborhood in San Francisco, was determined to improve both the quality of...
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WEBINAR: Amplify Impact from National Institute for Health Care Management (NIHCM) Foundation on 8/29
High-quality early childhood education (ECE) has an enormous positive impact on lifelong health, serving as a protective factor against adult disease and disability. Children who receive high-quality ECE stay in school longer and earn more income as adults, helping to close the income inequality gap. Yet parents sometimes struggle to access or pay for available programs, and only about 16% of children who were eligible for federal childcare subsidies in 2015 received them. Given the high...
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Why One Bay Area County is Exploring Basic Income for Former Foster Youth [mercurynews.com]
By Erica Hellerstein, The Mercury News, January 13, 2020 When Dontae Lartigue left foster care right before his 19th birthday in 2009, finding housing in Santa Clara County was one of his biggest obstacles. He struggled to find places he could afford on his $12 an hour salary at Walmart, and with a limited income and no rental history, he found landlords were often wary of returning his calls. So Lartigue, who is now 29 years old, ended up couch surfing or sleeping in his car. “Right now...
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Will Paradise be Rebuilt Without its Largest Low-Income Housing Complex [calmatters.org]
By Matt Levin, Cal Matters, November 8, 2019 Nancy Rich wants to go back home. It’s not just the longer commute that’s wearing on her. Rich, 65, drives an hour each way from her one bedroom apartment in Marysville to her job in the mailroom at the Chico Enterprise-Record newspaper. She works a full swing shift, meaning she doesn’t get home until about 3 a.m. It’s not just the annoying bathroom leak, which she has to keep stuffed with bath towels, or the rumors of car break-ins and burglaries...
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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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Simulation Participants Learn the High Cost of Being Low Income [mercurynews.com]
By Anne Gelhaus, Bay Area News Group, November 4, 2019 Jack Jolly, 25, almost lost his job for being late, had his pay withheld and got evicted, all with in the space of a month—or an hour, depending on your perspective. Jack was the role played by Kyle (participants didn’t give last names) in a Nov. 2 poverty simulation staged by West Valley Community Services and the city of Cupertino, in partnership with Step Up Silicon Valley. Kyle was one of about 30 participants who each adopted the...
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Speaking and training services from a first-hand, tenaciously resilient experience
My name is Rebekah Couch and I am a former teen mother of five children, the youngest child being my only clean & sober pregnancy allowed to remain in my care. I am a survivor of multiple sexual assaults and was afflicted with untreated mental health issues as an adolescent. My destructive journey began with self-medicating and illegal activities in Jr. High and a daily cocaine addiction by the age of fifteen that eventually advanced to methamphetamine abuse. My addiction and criminal...
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State board’s next challenge: how to measure school climate, the heartbeat of a school (edsource.org)
Busloads of high school students and parents from organizations statewide have trekked to State Board of Education meetings for two years, clamoring for changes they believe will improve school climate. In moving testimony, students described schools where they feel disconnected, misunderstood and often under-challenged. “If you are serious about closing the achievement gap, and bringing equity to our most vulnerable students, don’t continue to neglect school climate,” Armon Matthews, a...
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State Dropping Ball in Dealing With Childhood Trauma, New Report Says [CaliforniaHealthline.org]
The lowest of 31 grades issued in the 2016 California Children's Report Card released on Wednesday was for dealing with the effects of childhood trauma. In Children Now's biennial assessment of the status of California kids, researchers gave the state a "D-" for how it deals with childhood trauma. The report contends that children who experience traumatic problems such as abuse, neglect and witnessing violence at home can suffer serious long-term consequences, including health...
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RYSE Center's Listening Campaign: Young people in Richmond, CA help adults understand trauma, violence, coping, and healing
"My experience with violence is very brutal...I grew up with violence as if it were my sibling." - LC participant (youth) "We know we can't run the city- it's too complex- but our experience and our voices should count, especially because we're the most effected ." - LC participant (youth) "Our city's problems are shared by us all; we are all part of the problem AND the solution. Listening is a key component to healing." - LC Share Out partici pant (adult) Three years ago, RYSE Center in...
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Sacramento's Plan To Keep Black Children Alive Is Working — And LA Is Watching (LAist]
BY Priska Neely, July 29, 2019 In Los Angeles County, black babies are three times more likely to die before their first birthday than white babies. Dire racial disparities in infant mortality have persisted for decades, and local officials have said turning those statistics around is a public health priority . A robust, related initiative in Sacramento is showing promising results — and there are lessons L.A. can learn from their efforts. L.A.'s action plan, formed in 2018, aims to close...
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San Diego County numbers show lifespan gap between rich and poor (inewsource.org)
The wealthiest men in San Diego County can expect to live almost a decade longer than their poorest counterparts. That’s one of the findings from the Health Inequality Project , a report written by researchers from Stanford, Harvard and MIT. In 2014, the most recent year available, a 40-year-old San Diego County man in the top quarter of income earners could expect to live to almost 90. A man of the same age in the bottom quarter of income would only expect to live to 80. Steven Eldred with...
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Santa Cruz County seeks funds for Nurse-Family Partnership for first-time moms in poverty [SantaCruzSentinel.com]
The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors wants to bet on early intervention to help women living in poverty and pregnant with their first baby to narrow the gap with more advantaged peers. The Nurse-Family Partnership , a model used in 43 states and 551 counties, pairs women three months into a pregnancy with a nurse who makes 64 home visits through the childs second birthday. The nurse provides education on nutrition, child development and parenting at a critical time for babies and...
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Schools Should Recognize Trauma as a Disability, Compton Lawsuit Says [KQED.org]
A group of middle and high school students in Compton have filed a first-of-its-kind federal lawsuit saying violence at home and in their neighborhoods has impaired their ability to learn at school. The students, along with three teachers who are also plaintiffs, allege the Compton Unified School District has failed to recognize and address their trauma-induced disabilities, and therefore has denied their legal right to an equal education. ....You have to address trauma in order to do...
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Survivor Stories to Build Partnerships: Tools for Domestic Violence Service Providers [jsi.com]
By John Snow, Inc., April 2020 The connection between domestic violence (DV), social determinants of health, and other pressing issues may not always be clear to potential partners who do not work in the DV/trauma prevention fields. JSI developed a set of tools for domestic violence service providers—in the form of stories—to address this gap. The first three stories depict the connection between DV and a key social issue (housing instability, economic insecurity, or childhood adversity).
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Suspension, expulsion rates fall sharply in California, but racial and ethnic disparities remain [edsource.org]
School suspensions and expulsions in California public schools have dropped dramatically among all racial and ethnic groups over the past five years but a significant gap remains for African-American students, according to new state data released Wednesday. In the 2016-17 school year, the suspension rate of African-American students in California public schools was 9.8 percent. Still, that rate was significantly lower than it was in 2011-12, when the rate for African-American students was...
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Telling a more complete story about child welfare
A new study from Berkeley Media Studies Group found that coverage of the child welfare system omits important context and connections to other issues. Here are four steps practitioners can take to improve the news.
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The Economics of Child Abuse: A Study of California
While the impact of maltreatment on a child and their family is devastating, child maltreatment also has serious effects far beyond those for the victim. Maltreatment results in ongoing costs to taxpayers, institutions, businesses, and society at large. Local communities bear the brunt of these costs in the form of medical, educational, and judicial costs, though more tragic signs are seen in homelessness, addiction, and teen pregnancy. To create a concrete understanding of the widespread...
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The Racial Wealth Gap: What California Can Do About a Long-Standing Obstacle to Shared Prosperity [calbudgetcenter.org]
In the years since the 2007 Great Recession, economic commentary has veered between hailing the subsequent recovery and sounding the alarm about rising inequality. Income inequality is often identified as a sign of both the country’s underlying economic troubles and public policies that disproportionately benefit the wealthy. An alternative indicator of the nation’s social and economic health pertains to wealth, specifically the growing wealth gap among people of different races and...
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These Laws Could Make Life a Little Easier for Low-Income Californians [calmatters.org]
By Jackie Botts, Cal Matters, October 10, 2019 Lawmakers have passed a suite of bills that aim to ease financial burdens for Californians living paycheck to paycheck. While several new California laws have sparked national attention — such as the law that will convert gig economy workers into full employees and another to cap large rent increases — state legislators quietly approved dozens of other bills that address challenges faced by California’s poor. Among this year’s batch of...
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TCOE [Tulare County Office of Education] Grant Opens 'Gates' for Minority, Low-Income Students [thesungazette.com]
By The Sun-Gazette, November 13, 2019 The Tulare County Office of Education will play a key role in helping develop strategies to improve student outcomes for black, Latino and low-income students. Last week, the Tulare County Office of Education (TCOE) learned it will receive a $500,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. TCOE was the only K-12 agency in California among the current cohort of Model Design & Initiation (MDI) grantees. The MDI grant is the second grant...
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UC Plans to Enroll 1,400 More California Undergraduates With No Tuition Increase [latimes.com]
By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times, November 15, 2019 The University of California plans to enroll 1,400 more California undergraduates next year with no tuition increase under a 2020-21 budget approved Thursday by the board of regents. The UC system also will enroll 1,000 additional graduate students and expand mental health services and academic support in its drive to increase graduation rates and close the achievement gap among diverse student groups. The UC Student Assn. successfully...
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Data Exclusive: 75 Percent of Black California Boys Don’t Meet State Reading Standards [CalMatters.org]
Three of four African-American boys in California classrooms failed to meet reading and writing standards on the most recent round of testing, according to data obtained from the state Department of Education and analyzed by CALmatters. More than half of black boys scored in the lowest category on the English portion of the test, trailing their female counterparts. The disparity reflects a stubbornly persistent gender gap in reading and writing scores that stretches across ethnic groups.
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Despite progress, California's teaching force far from reflecting diversity of students (edsource.org)
California has a far more racially and ethnically diverse teaching force than it had 20 years ago — and a more diverse one than is the case nationally. About about 1 in 3 of the state’s 305,000 teachers are teachers of color, compared to 1 in 5 teachers across the nation. But during the same period, California’s public school student population has also become more diverse. As a result, the diversity gap between teachers and students has barely narrowed, and in some cases widened. The...
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Dozens of stakeholders representing thousands of practitioners send public comments on Calif. ACEs-screening plan
Update: We posted this story on Tuesday evening and received a response from the Department of Health Care Services Wednesday that clarifies additional information. DHCS information Officer Katharine Weir said that subject to budget approval by the legislature and the governor: The reimbursement rate will be $29. Federally Qualified Health Centers will also be reimbursed for screening pediatric patients for trauma through Prop 56 funds and federal matching funds. In response to a question...
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Early Discount 20th Annual Families & Fathers Conference
Call to action- Fathers and Families Coalition of America is nearing the 20th Annual Families and Fathers Conference, March 4-7, 2019 in Los Angeles, California with a comprehensive program that hosts presenters from the United Kingdom, Scotland, Ireland, Australia, Nigeria, Puerto Rico, Bolivia and throughout the United States. We are providing the conference information for your consideration to participate. We are asking you to share this conference information with your community...
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Echo Conference Spotlight: Restorative Justice
This year’s conference has something for everyone! Opening the conference, Echo’s Co-Executive Directors will be joined by some very special guests, including Anne Hudson-Price, an attorney from Public Counsel. Anne will be speaking about the legal action taken by Public Counsel to bring trauma-informed services to Compton School District. “You have to address trauma in order to do anything about the achievement gap,” she says in this article . In addition to featuring the Public Counsel,...
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Kaiser says it halved the hypertension gap between blacks and whites over a decade — but how? [centerforhealthjournalism.org]
By Judith Lewis Mernit, USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, June 13, 2019. More African American men and women suffer from hypertension than any other ethnic group in the U.S. — and many of them don’t even know it. Defined as a systolic blood-pressure reading of greater than 120, hypertension presents few or no symptoms. But it kills, all the same. High circulatory tension “was the leading cause of death and disability-adjusted life-years worldwide,” according to the American College...
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LA County supervisors OK $10 million for the LAUSD to pay for more mental health counselors
As the Los Angeles teachers strike continued Tuesday, the L.A. County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved $10 million in funding for the Los Angeles Unified School District to pay for more mental health counselors in schools. As part of its contract demands, the teachers union has called for smaller class sizes as well as more nurses, counselors and librarians in schools. Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, who co-authored the motion along with Supervisor Hilda Solis, told reporters the...
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Learning Community Recording Available: Building Family, Agency, and Community Resilience: Rural Policies to Improve Housing Affordability and Accessibility
The third Sierra Learning Community for the 2019-20 fiscal year focused upon Building Family, Agency, and Community Resilience: Rural Policies to Improve Housing Affordability and Accessibility. The power point and other materials distributed to attendees are attached to this post. View the recording by clicking here: 2.13.20 Sierra Learning Community ANNOUNCEMENTS Make sure to visit the Strategies2.0 YouTube Channel to access recordings of all the Strategies2.0 sponsored webinars and...
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McGuire, First 5 Humboldt talk ‘ACEs’ at town hall [Times Standard News]
Humboldt County has one of the highest rates of childhood trauma and abuse in the state with 75 percent of locals being affected by at least one adverse childhood experience — or ACE. T his county along with Mendocino County, have the highest percentage of residents with four or mor e ACEs. “A child who experiences ACEs is 12 times [more likely] to attempt suicide, 12 times. A child who has four or more ACEs experiences [is] seven times [more likely] to be and alcoholic or 10 times higher to...
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Millions Unclaimed: Behind California’s Troubled Mental Health Care Funding System (calhealthreport.org)
At a time when a third of the state’s population relies on government-funded health care, most California counties are failing to apply for millions of dollars that could be used to broaden access to mental health care, an analysis by the California Health Report has found. Data from California’s Department of Health Care Services shows that only a handful of counties apply for Mental Health Medi-Cal Administrative Activities reimbursement, and those that do often obtain a low amount...
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New 'Food Hub' for Low-Income Residents Launched in Bay Area [calmatters.org]
By Erica Hellerstein, Cal Matters, January 17, 2020 A new Alameda County program focused on the connections between poverty, food and employment opened Friday morning, the latest in a countywide effort to help low-income residents by increasing access to jobs and fresh produce. The newly built, 3,300-square-foot space will provide a commercial kitchen for small, home-based food entrepreneurs, land to grow fresh produce and a place to package leftover food retrieved from some local schools to...
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New Study Shows Communities Can Reduce the Effects of Adverse Childhood Experiences [Mathematic Policy Research]
[ Ed. note: Following is a media release published yesterday by Mathematica Policy Research. This follows on the heals of the report, "Self-Healing Communities" that Laura Porter, Dr. Robert Anda and WHO wrote for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Both reports and executive summaries are attached to this blog post. Both reports are significant, because they show that community ACEs initiatives -- with "modest investments and limited staff" -- are solving some of our most intractable...