Blog

By Jeremy Loudenback, The Imprint, January 7, 2021 For Pari Lucero , the path to escaping addiction and domestic violence started in a dependency courtroom three days after she gave birth to her daughter Beth. Wearing a new dress, she listened with dread that day in 2006, as a lawyer for Los Angeles County pushed to remove her children after she tested positive for drugs at the hospital. When the judge agreed, a dazed Lucero watched as three of her children — including her newborn — were...

By Alison Bowen and Lauren Rodriguez Presa, Chicago Tribune, December 8, 2020 When Jessica Desarden, 32, became a mother seven years ago, one of her concerns was finding the appropriate day care to look after her children when she went back to work. Desarden, a nurse living in the Belmont Cragin area, said she quickly realized there were not many child care centers near her home. “Good child care that’s affordable is not very easily found around here,” she said on a recent weeknight after...

By Cara Karter, Gita Connolly, and Kamia Rathore, Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago, December 2020 The COVID-19 pandemic is rapidly altering families’ circumstances. It is creating new social service needs and deepening pre-existing socioeconomic and related inequities. As communities address and recover from the impacts of COVID-19, effective public policy and corresponding interventions to support children and families need to address economic and health disparities that are...

By Matt Barnum, Chalkbeat, January 11, 2021 After Congress passed a $900 billion stimulus package in December, President-elect Joe Biden called it a “down payment.” So did Becky Pringle, president of the nation’s largest teachers union. The money was a start, they said, but not everything schools or the economy needed to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. Neither mentioned the awkward reality at the time: there was no guarantee that any more money was forthcoming. If Republicans held...

By Mary Chris Jaklevic, JAMA, January 13, 2021 D aniel Hao, MD, wasn’t emotionally prepared for the crush of severely ill patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) who came under his care in March 2020. Many were young, sedated, and dying alone. Sometimes while FaceTiming with their families, Hao saw very young children on the screen. “It was frightening,” Hao, an anesthesia resident at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, said in an interview. “A lot of the things that we...

By Julia Barajas, Los Angeles Times, January 12, 2021 Sometimes it’s karaoke. Sometimes it’s multiplayer games like skribbl or Among Us. Whatever it is, middle-school student Tiggerina Virgen never skips her after-school program — even though it means more time on Zoom. During one meeting, Alejandrina Arizmendi-Ramírez, a recent college graduate who runs the sessions, found out that Tiggerina had an F in science. She quickly mobilized support for Tiggerina, making sure she submitted missing...

By Alycia Hardy, Center for Law and Social Policy, January 13, 2021 A relatively simple question my seven-year-old son asked as I watched the coverage of the Capitol insurrection. I had many answers for him. Answers I could easily verbalize to adults, the simplest being that this is what happens when white supremacy culture is threatened. When those who have historically held a position of power feel their power being shifted using the very systems and structures they built to protect it,...

New toolkit shares community-led strategies for creating social connection Five years ago, a diverse group of community-based coalitions rooted in neighborhoods throughout the country began to explore how they might better support mental health and wellbeing for boys and men of color and for military service members, veterans, and their families. With support from Prevention Institute and funding from Movember, coalitions from cities like Honolulu, Boston, and New Orleans and rural areas in...

Q: What information can I give parents about head banging? What can they do about it? At what point does it become a concern of safety or need for further intervention? A: As is true for many aspects of behavior and development, any parental concern needs to be taken in context for how the child is doing overall with any other concerns you may have. However, in general, head banging is a common childhood behavior. Typically, this occurs when children are frustrated or overwhelmed. You can...

Dear Friends and Allies On behalf of the millions of California’s children entitled to mental health support and services, we are pleased to share this groundbreaking report: “ Meeting the Moment: Improving EPSDT Implementation in California to Address Growing Mental Health Needs .” READ THE REPORT Envisioned by the California Children’s Trust (CCT), and written by the National Center for Youth Law (NCYL) and the National Health Law Program (NHeLP), the report offers advocates and...

This is the subject of a Zoom conversation with a sensational panel of educators/psychologists on January 27th at 5:00 p.m. --- for free. The flyer is attached. Meet Ed Wang (Harvard Medical School; MGH); Pat Neal (experienced educator; counselor; leader of non-profits); Sakina McGruder (elementary school educator; member Delta Kappa Gamma Women Educator Honor Society). Now, the answer to the question in my view is yes. But, we need to act on not just talk about change. We need trauma...

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