August 30, 2021

Joint Hearing Senate Special Committee on Pandemic Response and Education

On August 18, 2021, the Senate Education Committee held a joint informational hearing with the Senate Special Committee on Pandemic Emergency Response. Alex Briscoe, CCT's Principal, was invited to present on how the state can increase and improve support for the mental and behavioral health needs of students as they return to in-person learning during ongoing challenges of the pandemic. Read more.

May 25, 2021

Fix youth mental health crisis with collaborative action

Systemic change requires ground-breaking collaboration. Finally, there may be hope. President Joe Biden’s administration is directing resources into prevention and treatment for marginalized communities. From the White House to Sacramento, politicians are leading change, bolstered by policy advocates identifying the systemic bottlenecks, researchers proving scalable interventions and the public seeking a response to the mental health crisis among children and families. Science, policy, practice and leadership are converging. Read more.

February 19, 2021

The Joyest Sunlight of Liberation

I would love pain-free liberation—to experience an abundance of joy, a life that comes easy, for a lifetime forever. I would love a limitless vision of life, liberty, and the ... Read more.

January 27, 2021

California schools report fewer homeless students, alarming advocates

After years of steadily rising numbers of homeless youth in California, schools saw a significant drop during the last school year in the official tally of homeless students — leading some advocates to warn that thousands of students may have gone uncounted during the pandemic and are not receiving services they need. Read more.

November 4, 2020

Latest Research: Advancing Mental Health and Well Being

The Well Being Trust and Viacom CBS partnered together to conduct quantitative and qualitative research on American's thoughts and attitudes on their own mental health, social forces and mental health, and mental health policy. The research included in-depth interviews with policy influencers, an online survey of 1,701 individuals which oversampled typically underrepresented populations like Black people, Native American people and LGBTQ+ people. Read more.

November 2, 2020

State suicide prevention efforts to remain legislative focus

State lawmakers, California schools chief and mental health providers argued recently for a continued focus on suicide prevention efforts, particularly for children and youth, as they celebrated passage of a law creating a state office of suicide prevention while noting vast unfulfilled needs for school resources to combat suicide and self-harm on campuses. Read more.

October 27, 2020

New California preventive mental health coverage puts ACEs sciene front and center

This summer, Medi-Cal announced a new Family Therapy Benefit that allows families to obtain preventive therapy for an unlimited number of sessions if parents are experiencing stress that affects their children. The coverage, which applies retroactively to the beginning of 2020, for the first time essentially elevates mental health to the same level of support as physical health. Read more.

August 26, 2020

California Children’s Trust and Breaking Barriers Call for New and Expanded Partnerships Between Health Systems and School Leadership to Leverage Untapped Federal Funds for Critical Mental Health Services for Students

California Children’s Trust and it’s partner, Breaking Barriers, have released a “Practical Guide for Financing Social, Emotional and Mental Health in Schools”, designed to help education leaders and California access millions of dollars of Medi-Cal funding students are entitled to in order to support the social and emotional needs of our students, even more essential during COVID-19. The guide notes that less than half of California’s school districts currently participate in the LEA BOP program.1 The guide provides school leaders and California with models currently being used, and critical details and guidance on how to access services and supports California’s children need. Read more.

July 25, 2020

How structural racism is magnifying the public health crisis

As coronavirus cases disproportionately impact communities of color, several local and state officials have declared racism a public health crisis. Rhea Boyd, a public health advocate joins Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the structural racism in America’s healthcare system and how this ongoing pandemic of racial and economic inequality is compounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more.

June 19, 2020

The World Is Watching: Can We Finally Address Our Nation’s Youth Mental Health Crisis?

“Although the COVID-19 crisis is, in the first instance, a physical health crisis, it has the seeds of a major mental health crisis as well, if action is not taken.” So begins the United Nations’ Policy Brief: COVID-19 and the Need for Action on Mental Health, released May 13, 2020. A similar U.N. brief, released the previous month, addressed the specific threat of COVID-19 to children’s mental health. Read more.

June 11, 2020

Raising Black Children in America

The killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery have led to renewed calls for racial equality and justice across the U.S. They have also reinforced numerous fears that many parents have about raising black children. In this hour of Forum, we’ll talk about the distinct challenges of raising black children in America. Guest: Macheo Payne, executive director, Community & Youth Outreach; director of community engagement, California Children's Trust. Click on the following link to listen to the podcast: Read more.

June 10, 2020

Protest Is a Profound Public Health Intervention.’ Why So Many Doctors Are Supporting Protests in the Middle of the COVID-19 Pandemic

When massive protests broke out across the country in response to the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and numerous black Americans before them, Dr. Rhea Boyd saw the demonstrations not just as a necessary risk during a pandemic. The California-based pediatrician considered them lifesaving. Rhea Boyd, pediatrician, instructor of structural inequality and health at Stanford University, and Director of Strategy and Equity with California Children’s Trust, shares her perspective as an expert contributor for this article. Read more.

June 8, 2020

Black kids are watching this moment. What will it teach them?

Systemic racism has its hands deep into the physical health, mental well-being, future economic prospects, and daily lives of Black people — and Black children have always been watching, experiencing, and feeling it all. Rhea Boyd, pediatrician, instructor of structural inequality and health at Stanford University, and Director of Strategy and Equity with California Children’s Trust, shares her perspective as an expert contributor for this article. Read more.

June 2, 2020

How to talk to your children about protests and racism

As cities and social media explode with anger over the killing of yet another black man at the hands of police, worried parents struggle with how to protect their children from seeing the worst of the violence while simultaneously explaining the ravages of racism. Rhea Boyd, pediatrician, instructor of structural inequality and health at Stanford University, and Director of Strategy and Equity with California Children’s Trust, shares her perspective as an expert contributor for this article. Read more.

May 27, 2020

The COVID-19 crisis demands a transformation of our children’s mental health system

The transition to technology-enabled support for children’s mental health and well-being presents a number of compelling possibilities: continuity of service for children who move around due to poverty, being in foster care, or living in migrant families; better cultural matching, as any therapist anywhere can be matched with any child in need; service delivered outside of traditional hours, and without the need to commute across town in California traffic. But it’s only one part of the adaptation and the transformation that the current moment might bring about. Read more.

March 17, 2020

Opinion: As Schools Close, California Must Protect Access to Mental Health Care

Even before COVID-19, schools were already on the front lines of an epidemiological crisis. Alex Briscoe, Principal of California Children's Trust, and Ben Miller, Chief Strategy Officer of the Well Being Trust, discuss how to ensure our underfunded and fragile children's mental health system does not further erode, and that the children who are isolated during this crisis still have access to care. Read more.