"Despite the severe economic disruptions brought about by the pandemic, government aid led to a decline in poverty last year. Census Bureau numbers released last week show a nationwide drop in poverty from 2019 to 2020 (11.8% to 9.1%), when accounting for social safety net benefits and federal pandemic relief efforts. In California, federal stimulus payments (also known as economic impact payments) and key expansions to unemployment insurance (UI) helped millions make ends meet." To read...

Becky Antle, Ph.D., Professor of Social Work and esteemed University Scholar at the University of Louisville, won The Dibble Institute’s national competition to evaluate Mind Matters: Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience in 2019. As a result, Dr. Antle and her colleagues have conducted a randomized controlled trial to examine the impact of Mind Matters on a host of outcomes related to trauma symptoms, emotional regulation, coping and resiliency, and interpersonal skills for at-risk...

The Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO) highlights shared risk and protective factors for suicide and overdose in the infographic titled "Creating a Shared Approach to Suicide and Overdose Prevention." Childhood trauma and adversity, economic hardship, access to lethal means, discrimination, social isolation, and other risk factors can contribute to risk of suicide and/or overdose, while stable employment and housing, safe, supportive, and inclusive environments,...

From Child Trends: " New data from the U.S. Census Bureau show that the federal economic stimulus payments helped protect millions of children from poverty in 2020. These stimulus payments had a particularly large impact on Latino and Black children: According to the Census, the supplemental poverty rate (SPM) for Latino and Black children would have increased by 6.8 percentage points without the first two rounds of stimulus payments*, which were distributed starting in mid-April 2020, and...

A newly developed document titled “Connecting Families to Tax Credits to Improve Child Wellbeing in California: A Brief for California Local Health Departments and Children & Family Service Providers" has just been released and can be found attached to this blog post. This document is intended to assist Local Health Departments (LHDs) and children & family service providers in their efforts to educate about how the collection of the California Earned Income Tax (CalEITC), California...

This article was first published in RACMonitor and appears with explicit permission. Another week, another report on Americans facing concerning access to basic human needs. This week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) released its annual report, Household Food Security in the United States in 2020 . Data for the report was collected from 34,330 households in December 2020, though at first glance, this is misleading. While 89.5 percent of U.S. households were “food secure” at that...

We are sharing a funding opportunity from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Association of County and City Health Officials. Please see below for more information. With support from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) is pleased to announce a funding opportunity to support the implementation of evidence-based approaches to prevent overdose, substance use disorders (SUD),...

The Administration for Children and Families and the Department of Health & Human Services are engaging with the Treasury Department and the White House to help enroll eligible families in the Child Tax Credit, with a particular focus on families that may not usually file taxes. To do that, the ACF and HHS are offering the opportunity to participate in a 1 hour training to help you and your teams learn more about the Child Tax Credit and how you can help those in your community enroll.

Rozhan Ghanbari is a California Epidemiologic Investigation Service (Cal-EIS) Fellow working at the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) within the Injury and Violence Prevention Branch (IVPB). Currently she is working on analyzing and disseminating information regarding the Fatal Child Abuse and Neglect Surveillance (FCANS) system. She is also working with the Essentials for Childhood (EfC) Initiative! She received her B.S. in Public Health from the University of Alabama at...

The Food Research & Action Center has created a P-EBT for Children Under 6 on SNAP Outreach Toolkit to help inform eligible families on how to receive benefits. Due to the pandemic, millions of young children who were attending child care facilities in person lost access to free and reduced-price meals During the 2020–2021 academic year, children under 6 years old who were enrolled in SNAP at any time since October 1, 2020, are eligible for P-EBT benefits if they lived in or attended...

Join Strategies TA and best-selling author of Upstream: the Quest to Solve Problems before they Happen , Dan Heath for learning and inspiration around the critical need for prevention approaches to all types of social issues, including child abuse and neglect. In Upstream , Dan Heath examines how to prevent problems before they happen, drawing on insights from hundreds of interviews with unconventional problem solvers. In this webinar, he will share insights and interactive discussion around...

The U.S. Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey collected survey responses before and after monthly Advance Child Tax Credit (CTC) checks were issued to families with children. The survey shows that initiation of CTC payments coincided with a drop in food insufficiency and difficulty paying weekly expenses in households with children. About 47% of survey respondents reported spending their CTC payments on food. To read the complete article, click here .