Despite California’s unprecedented investment in child and family wellbeing, the gap between promising policies on paper and what they actually accomplish for young people and families has never felt so ... Read more.
Many California parents know this feeling well. Two years into the pandemic, our children are in pain. Rates of anxiety and depression have shot up so quickly that several national ... Read more.
California health officials have received federal approval for a plan to reform the state’s sprawling public health system — moves aimed in part to better serve children in foster care.. Read More Read more.
Poor care coordination is one of the many shortcomings of Medi-Cal, which covers over a third of the state’s population and nearly 40% of children. Advocates, patients and even the state auditor say Medi-Cal has failed to hold accountable the managed-care health plans that cover almost 12 million of its nearly 14 million enrollees. Read More Read more.
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.
After a year marked by anxiety and isolation for many young people, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed a windfall for youth mental health services in California on Friday. Read more.
“I think the universal consensus now is that children, especially Black and brown children, have been suffering greatly during the pandemic, and our system of delivering services is broken. Everyone ... Read more.
The development and dissemination of effective COVID-19 vaccines gives us hope for an end to the pandemic that has upended our lives. But vaccines will not end the mental health crisis that is emerging and likely worsening, particularly during the isolating winter months. The stress of the pandemic is leading to substantial mental health issues across the country. Read more.
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.
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.
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.
“Suicide and mental health help is something desperately needed in this state of California,” said Assemblyman James Ramos, D-Highland. “We can’t rest … We have to talk about it, we have to embrace that issue, so that people going through this in their lives will know that they’re not alone and there’s help out there for them.” Read more.
New guide shows how to leverage federal funds for student mental health needs Read more.
Dr. Boyd reminds us that children are watching. When children witness police violence directed at family members, its consequences (either through their arrest, incarceration, or death), may be acutely stressful not only in that moment but also impair children's health into their adulthood. Read more.
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.
Toxic stress and bias in health care are some of the factors that concern pediatricians and parents. Read more.
Alex Briscoe, principal of California Children’s Trust, a policy nonprofit focused on youth wellness, said efforts to expand funding for student health is ultimately an equity issue, because Black and Latino students are disproportionately affected by poverty and physical and mental health challenges. Read more.
Black americans face higher barriers to getting good mental health support. Read more.
“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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
For marginalized youth and young adults, the pandemic preys on their pre-existing conditions of trauma, victimization and pervasive insecurity. Jevon Wilkes, Director of Youth Engagement for the California Children’s Trust, discusses the effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on already marginalized young people. Read more.
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.
California’s top health priority should be making sure that people who need mental health treatment can get it, over 90 percent of respondents said in a recent poll. More than half of those surveyed by the California Health Care Foundation said their communities do not have enough mental health providers to meet the need. Read more.
California advocates and policymakers are guardedly hopeful that the new governor will walk the walk when it comes to responding to child trauma and mental health challenges for children in the state. That was the takeaway from the annual conference of Breaking Barriers. Read more.
The California Children’s Trust and the First 5 Center for Children’s Policy propose a paradigm shift in how California conceptualizes, delivers and funds a system of care for MediCal eligible infants, toddlers and their families. Read more.
A California advocacy organization is trying to reinvent America’s approach to children’s mental health. Read more.
An interview with Alex Briscoe about CCT's approach to reinventing children’s mental health. Alex shares about CCT's perspective on integrating resilience and community supports into the very fabric of society. Read more.
In a policy brief the California Children’s Trust said the state’s mental health system for youth is disjointed, messy, and overly focused on treating mental illness rather than preventing and identifying mental health problems early. Read more.
The key challenges at the heart of our state’s struggle to provide the behavioral health services kids need. Read more.
In California, there are vast inconsistencies in funding and services among counties. Read more.
An initiative is afoot that seeks to use a confluence of events to push for a revolution on children's mental health in California. Read more.
In California, the state's key program for providing mental health treatment to low-income children and youth under age 21 serves just a fraction of those estimated to need help, statistics show. Read more.
