By Sarah Catherine Williams , Reva Dalela , and Sharon Vandivere Families that experience poverty-related stressors such as income insecurity or loss , material hardship , and housing hardship or instability —in other words, families with a financial inability to provide for their children—are also more likely to come into contact with the child welfare system. The intersection of poverty and economic insecurity with neglect poses a challenge to child welfare agencies when they respond to...

Has the pandemic stressed you out? Want to learn the self-soothing skills of Mind Matters: Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience directly from the author, Dr. Carolyn Curtis? Good news! The Dibble Institute has received generous funding for scholarships to the online, full 12-lesson series, Mind Matters Now . The course helps teachers, social workers, medical professionals, and others manage their stress by building resilience skills and practices for mental well-being. (CEUs are...

Health in All Policies and the Essentials for Childhood Initiative would like thank all attendees’ participation in the collaborative virtual meeting series entitled, “Envisioning a Trauma-Informed, Healing-Centered, and Resilient California: Supporting State Government Efforts to Move toward Recovery” that took place on Monday, December 13 , 2021 from 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM. The meeting minutes and slides from this event are attached below for your review. The purpose of this formative event was...

A free series of training on child/adolescent traumatic grief in response to experience of COVID-19 related deaths are now available to register. As the US Surgeon General VADM Murthy recently noted, there have been at least 140,000 children in the US who lost a parent or caregiver-- BEFORE the winter surge began. Another subset have lost both parents/caregivers and yet other friends and other family members(grandparents, etc.). These trainings from the SAMHSA/NCTSN Learning Center have free...

The 2022 California Children’s Report Card – the most comprehensive report on children’s health, education, and well-being in our state – is available now. The Report Card grades the State on its ability to support better outcomes for kids, from prenatal to age 26, across 32 key children’s issues. This year’s edition also includes data related to the impact of the COVID pandemic on California kids. The 2022 Report Card highlights some good news. For example, state leaders earned an A- for...

The Office of Child Abuse Prevention is pleased to announce the availability of up to $215,000 per year of federal funding for a Parent Leadership Program. The Parent Leadership Program will support building a statewide team of parent leaders, including those previously involved in the child welfare system, to actively participate in program planning, development of policies and procedures, evaluation of systems, etc., at both the state and local levels for fiscal years (FY) 2022-25. For...

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH), Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (IVPB) is proud to release a new resource titled, “ Opportunities to Empower and Support Girls and Women in California: An Environmental Scan of Leadership Opportunities and Economic Supports to Prevent Sexual Violence, Intimate Partner Violence, and Teen Dating Violence .” The IVPB addresses root causes of violence and applies an upstream approach to violence prevention. There is a strategic interest in...

Please join us for our new series entitled: Trauma-Informed Criminal Justice. This monthly virtual Zoom series will feature conversations facilitated by Dr. Porter Jennings-McGarity, PhD/LCSW, PACEs Connection’s criminal justice consultant, with special guests to discuss the need for trauma-informed criminal justice system reform. Using a PACEs-science lens, this series will examine the relationship between trauma and the criminal justice system, what needs changing, and strategies being...

The Essentials for Childhood Initiative is pleased to share the “ Child Wellbeing During the Pandemic Webinar” Presentation Slides and recording that supported the event that took place on November 18, 2021. The purpose of this webinar was to increase understanding of child well-being during the pandemic, share where to access the “Family Experiences During COVID-19 Questionnaire” data, and support participants to learn about a school-based approach to address child health and well-being...

The Essentials for Childhood Initiative is pleased to share the “ Building Partnerships to Strengthen California’s Families” Convening Summary and Presentation Slides that supported the event that took place on November 3, 2021. The Convening Summary contains a detailed overview of the information shared and the feedback provided by the participants during the convening. You will find these documents attached below. To view the recording, please access the video at this link and use...

The CDPH Injury and Violence Prevention Branch , on behalf of the CDPH Violence Prevention Initiative , has released a new report on household firearm storage titled “ California Household Firearm Storage Practices, 2017-2019 .” Using survey data from the 2017-2019 California Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), the report shows that one in five California adults reported a household firearm. Of those who reported a household firearm, one in ten also reported storing it...

The CDPH Injury and Violence Prevention Branch ’s California Violent Death Reporting System (CalVDRS) Project has released four new injury data briefs and an infographic on suicide, homicide, firearm-related deaths, and violent deaths involving multiple victims using data from 2018. These briefs summarize vital statistics data as well as supplemental data from coroner/medical examiner and law enforcement reports to identify trends and circumstances in violent deaths in California. These...