March 2019

Cissy's note: Screening is a topic frequently discussed and debated. This is another interesting read on an important topic and there are a lot of excellent links from varied viewpoints in the notes. I'm grateful to the conversations here and on Twitter which help shape, challenge, and guide my thinking. Here is a link to the entire open source article by Author links open overlay pa Kat Ford , Karen Hughes, Katie Hardcastle, Lisa C.G. Di Lemma, Alisha R. Davies, Sara Edwards, Mark A . Bellis

Join our featured guests who will be gathering for a Twitter chat event following the virtual screening of Broken Places for our members on Thursday, March 21st. Note: Find more details about the film and the registration process at the end of this post. Daniella Rin Hover @NebulaCyton After overcoming difficulties throughout her life journey, Daniella has kept striving. She navigated teenage parenthood, achieved legal immigration status and citizenship and actively takes part in advocating...

GrandMa Boom, a.k.a., Janai Mestrovich, shows vigilance to protect toddler. (Originally posted to FaceBook, March 15, 2019) My plan was to call 911 for the police. The woman told the 2 yr. old if she didn't stop running around the table she would take her out to the car and lock her in it to stay there alone. I was horrified. That is when I thought I would call the police if she actually did that. I hoped she would not follow through. Meanwhile, the little girl kept watching me and came near...

The little girl was not gaining weight. The diagnosis: failure to thrive, a term used to describe a child who isn’t growing as expected. The remedy: nutritional shakes packed with protein. That typically would be the end of the appointment, said the girl’s doctor, @Nadine Burke Harris, a 43-year-old Jamaican American raised in Palo Alto who was named California’s first surgeon general last month. But, in her new role, Burke Harris said she will push to change a profession that too...

A little-publicized legal decision was just issued by Judge Joseph C. Spero of the U.S. District Court of Northern California that anyone who plans to use their mental health insurance coverage to secure needed care will want to school themselves on. Ruling on a class action lawsuit brought against United Behavioral Health (UBH), a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer, Judge Spero drew the conclusion that UBH had reneged on its fiduciary responsibility to...

Four years ago, Dorothy Gorder was living under the I-5 bridge in downtown Seattle. Addicted to meth and heroin, she lived in makeshift shelters fashioned out of cardboard boxes and pallets, draping clothing to block out the wind. Her car had been stolen. Gorder left behind a son in Montana, who was living with his grandmother. A daughter to whom she'd given birth while homeless was taken away and adopted by a foster family. Then she got pregnant again, with another son, and resolved to turn...

The persistence of high maternal and infant mortality rates among Black women is now being addressed in a very different way in New Jersey, says Ronsha Dickerson, the doula leader for the Southern New Jersey Perinatal Cooperative’s Healthy Women, Healthy Families program. The program trains Black women to act as resources for other pregnant Black women before, during, and after birth. They are not medical professionals, but they help women get what they need in terms of information,...

After her visit at an adolescent medical clinic in Los Angeles in January, 19-year-old Serena was afraid to go home. Six days before, her boyfriend had beaten her so badly that she had to go to the emergency room. Serena’s name has been changed to protect her safety. “She was so sad and so scared,” said Monica Sifuentes, my colleague and an adolescent medicine pediatrician at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, who treated Serena. With visible sadness, she told me Serena’s story. Serena, who is...

Promise is a 'decarceration' startup that was created by Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins and Diana Frappier to tackle the issue of mass incarceration, and which raised over $3 million from partners as diverse as Jay Z's Roc Nation, First Round Capital and Kapor Capital. There are close to 2.3 million people incarcerated in America overall and approximately 4.5 million on probation or parole. 12 million people cycle through local jails every year, more than 70% of whom are incarcerated pretrial -...

On Wednesday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a moratorium on the death penalty, saying he would grant clemency to all 737 people on death row in San Quentin. The closing of the nation’s largest death row (you can see photos of the death chamber at San Quentin being dismantled already) brings us much closer to the end of the death penalty in America. In the past, governors who declared a moratorium on the death penalty may have taken a political risk, but Newsom’s decision very much...

The Children's Bureau has created activity calendars that parents, programs, and community partners can use to participate in National Child Abuse Prevention Month in April. Discover ways to plan and engage with families through events related to the protective factors into Child Abuse Prevention Month activities. Calendars are available in English and Spanish. https://www.childwelfare.gov/t opics/preventing/preventionmon th/spread-the-word/activity-calendars/ Other resources for National...

The 2019 Prevention Resource Guide is designed to help individuals and organizations in every community strengthen families and prevent child abuse and neglect. This year's theme, "Strong and Thriving Families," aligns with the 21st National Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect. The Resource Guide focuses on protective factors that build on family strengths to foster healthy child and youth development. It can be used along with the Protective Factors in Practice scenarios and the activity...