The Office of Child Abuse Prevention (OCAP ) oversees California’s three Citizen Review Panels (CRPs). Each one focuses on a specific topic: child and family services, the prevention of child abuse and neglect, and critical incidents. The responsibilities of the CRPs involve evaluating child welfare policies, practices, and procedures, assessing systemic barriers, and making recommendations to improve and remove barriers. The CRPs can make recommendations that will improve the lives of...

By Somini Sengupta, The New York Times, December 2020 The fires sweeping across millions of acres in California aren’t just incinerating trees and houses. They’re also filling the lungs of California’s children with smoke, with potentially grave effects over the course of their lives. The effects are not evenly felt. While California as a whole has seen a steady uptick in smoke days in recent years, counties in the state’s Central Valley, which is already cursed with some of the most...

ACEs Aware in Action Roadmap for Resilience: The California Surgeon General’s Report on Adverse Childhood Experiences, Toxic Stress, and Health The Office of the California Surgeon General released the first California Surgeon General’s Report - Roadmap for Resilience: The California Surgeon General's Report on Adverse Childhood Experiences, Toxic Stress, and Health . The report serves as a blueprint for how communities, states, and nations can recognize and effectively address Adverse...

From ACEs Aware, December 15, 2020 California Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke Harris set a bold vision to cut ACEs and toxic stress in half in one generation through a strategically deployed, coordinated public health initiative designed to raise awareness, reduce transmission of ACEs and strengthen our response networks. As part of this work, the Office of the California Surgeon General (CA-OSG) developed the Roadmap for Resilience: The California Surgeon General’s Report on Adverse...

New ACEs Aware Grant Opportunity to Support Trauma-Informed Networks of Care The Department of Health Care Services in partnership with Office of the California Surgeon General and the today released a Request for Proposal (RFP) for a second round of ACEs Aware grants , with a submission deadline of December 21, 2020. The new grants will target California communities that want to build or execute a robust Network of Care to effectively respond to ACEs and toxic stress to meet the needs of...

In a conversational style, join physician Drew Factor who will speak with Dr. Tracy Gaudet, Liza Guroff and An é Watts in a discussion entitled "Reimagining Health Care". Dr. Gaudet will speak about her experience engaging in transformational change at the Veterans Administration and how this has shaped the development of her own Functional Medicine Institute , while Ms. Guroff and Ms. Watts will speak about their knowledge of a Trauma-Informed Approach both at a systems (National Council...

By B J Hanson, September 2020, My Motherlode. Sonora, CA — The Tuolumne County Supervisors approved an agreement to purchase two acres in Tuolumne for the construction of a future Community Resilience Center. We reported earlier that Tuolumne County was picked to receive federal grant money to build centers in both Groveland and Tuolumne, following the 2013 Rim Fire. Deputy CAO Maureen Frank noted that the Tuolumne site is actually three parcels owned by the Tuolumne Band of Me Wuk Indians.

CALIFORNIA ACES ACADEMY (CAA) , funded by ACEs Aware, is providing free online training to Medi-Cal providers and others featuring: Practical strategies for integrating trauma-informed health care into your team’s practice that improves patients’ well being and the productivity of your practice. Meet colleagues with experience and success providing trauma-informed health care in their practices. Learn from national and local experts. Talk to other professionals from your region in small...

SACRAMENTO — Seventeen counties have received the go-ahead from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration to reopen their local economies more quickly than the state as a whole. The counties largely encompass rural areas in Northern California and the Sierra, with the exception of San Benito County south of the Bay Area. All met state-set benchmarks in containing the coronavirus pandemic to qualify for early reopening. Gov. Gavin Newsom said last week that some counties would be allowed to reopen...

By Lori Basheda, California Healthline, April 30, 2020 Jane Gunter, a nurse practitioner in Tuolumne County, California, has long wanted to specialize in mental health so she can treat patients who have anxiety, depression and more complicated mental illnesses. Her county, a rural outpost in the Sierra Nevada foothills with a population of about 54,000, has only five psychiatrists — “a huge shortage,” she said. But Gunter, 56, wasn’t about to quit her job at the Me-Wuk Indian Health Center...

The California Department of Social Services (CDSS), Office of Child Abuse Prevention (OCAP) has partnered with the Chadwick Center for Children and Families at Rady Children’s Hospital – San Diego to launch the Advancing California’s Trauma-Informed Systems (ACTS) project. Designed for child welfare systems, the ACTS Project includes opportunities for: Collaborative planning and thoughtful identification of individualized areas for trauma-informed care (TIC) advancement In-depth resource...

A new program in Tuolumne County aims to help youth who are having a mental health crisis. The program, presented by the YES Partnership, is called Youth Mental Health First Aid, and the first training course was held last week in Sonora.  Another training session is planned for February and is free thanks to a grant from the Sonora Area Foundation and Mental Health Services Act funding through Tuolumne County Behavioral Health Department.  Youth Mental Health First Aid is designed...