June 2020

By Jason Fagone and Megan Cassidy, San Francisco Chronicle, June 20, 2020 A week ago, Jessica Miller-Marez received a troubling phone call from her husband, 37-year-old Jesse Marez, who is incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison in Marin County. Something strange was happening at San Quentin, Jesse told her. A large number of prisoners had recently arrived on buses from somewhere in Southern California and had been placed in cells on the upper tiers of Jesse’s housing area — a unit known as...

By Theresa Clift and Phillip Reese, The Sacramento Bee, June 20, 2020 The recent surge in Sacramento County’s confirmed COVID-19 cases has hit several socioeconomically-disadvantaged communities hard, including some places that had previously avoided the worst of the outbreak, according to a Sacramento Bee review of county and census data. All five of the ZIP codes with the highest rates of COVID-19 cases per 10,000 residents diagnosed from mid-May through mid-June are in areas with high...

By Denzel Tongue, California Health Report, June 18, 2020 Across the Bay Area and California, people are eager for things to feel normal. But for communities of color hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic, this crisis has revealed an uncomfortable and urgent truth: “Normal” isn’t working. Local statistics show how COVID-19 has amplified existing racial inequities when it comes to different communities’ health outcomes. These inequalities are resulting in Black residents in three Bay Area...

By Dominique Parris, Victor St. John, Jessica Dym Bartlett, Child Trends, June 23, 2020 Most Black children in the United States encounter racism in their daily lives. Ongoing individual and collective psychological or physical injuries due to exposure and re-exposure to race-based adversity, discrimination, and stress, referred to as racial trauma , is harmful to children’s development and well-being. Events that may cause racial trauma include threats of harm and injury, hate speech,...

By Change Lab Solutions, June 23, 2020 Access to safe, stable, and affordable housing is crucial for community health, and COVID-19 is amplifying its importance. Access to housing helps individuals practice social distancing and maintain adequate hygiene to prevent infection. Housing quality is equally important. Given that families are encouraged to stay home as much as possible during the pandemic, it is critical that individuals have housing that is free of lead, mold, and other harmful...

By Claudia Boyd-Barrett, California Health Report, June 22, 2020 At the beginning of March, Monse Gonzalez had her entire year planned. She would graduate from community college, save part of her paychecks as a childcare worker, and start school at the University of Santa Barbara. Then came the pandemic. Suddenly, everything Gonzalez, 18, had worked for was in jeopardy: her job, her housing, her associates degree. While many young adults have families to lean on during these uncertain times,...

By Nada Atieh, Redding Record Searchlight, June 22, 2020 An alarmingly low number of child abuse cases were reported to Shasta County Health and Human Services Agency's Children’s Branch in April and May, going undetected as a symptom of the pandemic. In April 2019, 347 cases of child abuse were reported in contrast to 158 cases in April 2020, according to Shasta County Health and Human Services Children’s branch. And in May 2019, 366 child abuse cases were reported while only 169 reports...

By Lishaun Francis June 23, 2020 The shelter-in-place orders due to COVID-19 ignited widespread alarm, anxiety and depression for adults concerned about interrupting their daily routines, falling ill and maintaining their economic stability. Simultaneously, children and youth were struggling with the same fears. School closures, disconnection from friends and an abrupt stop to community resources put additional strain on an already tenuous hold on mental wellness for many young people. In...

Medi-Cal has just published new policy making family therapy a covered benefit for children and adults with mental health disorders and for children who are at risk for mental health disorders. This will be especially relevant for children with ACEs. Under the guidance of the California Department of Health Care Services, the Medi-Cal fee-for-service program aims to provide health care services to about 13 million Medi-Cal beneficiaries. The Medi-Cal fee-for-service program adjudicates both...

ACEs Connection is proud to announce we have reached 200 Speakers & Trainers participants in the ACEs Connection Speakers & Trainers Bureau! What is the ACEs Connection Speakers & Trainers Bureau? The ACEs Connection Speakers & Trainers Bureau is a service that provides subscribers of ACEsConnection a Database of ACEs speakers and trainers for hire. The development of the Speakers & Trainers Bureau was in response to a great need expressed by our communities. ACEs...

By Brett Simpson, San Francisco Chronicle, June 18, 2020 On Wednesday afternoon, over 300 California educators, parents, and students tuned into Facebook Live to hear high school students speak honestly about their own experiences of racism, implicit bias, and trauma at school. The “ Student Support Circle: Institutional Racism and Implicit Bias ,” was co-hosted by the California Department of Education and the National Equity Project, and is the first among several initiatives state...

Juneteenth is Friday, June 19. Read this brief history by the LA Times of the Juneteenth Celebration and description of recent celebrations in Los Angeles, celebrations that will be repeated throughout California this weekend.