A bus pulls up to a school for Pre-K to eighth grade. A preschooler wearing only a diaper, carrying a lunch box (which turns out to be empty), gets off the bus. This was the shocking testimony by Vermont Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Rieber to the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) Working Group as he shared how childhood trauma like poverty and neglect affects what judges, educators, and social workers are seeing. The Vermont legislature established the six-member ACEs Working Group in 2017 to look at the health and human services landscape with regards to childhood trauma and science behind ACEs. In 2018, the group introduced four ACE-related bills to improve trauma support and treatment within state government, health care and education.
Legislative Working ...
Child advocates in California (61% Latino) are asking organizations to support the proposed Family Urgent Response System to provide foster youth and their caregivers with immediate help when they need it most. The proposed system would support a new toll-free hotline to give kids in foster care and caregivers immediate help with mental health crises, and require counties to prepare mobile response teams to provide on-site assistance. Your organization can join more than 75 others in signing a letter to support this proposal by April 3, 2018.
Family Urgent Response System In February, 2018, Assembly Member Dr. Joaquin Arambula introduced the Family Urgent Response System bill (AB-2043) to the California Legislature to support foster youth and caregivers. California ...
Diabetes continues to be one of the leading causes of death, affecting the lives of Texans and Latinos all across the U.S. Latinos in Texas are nearly 2x as likely to die of diabetes compared to whites, after adjusting for age. In 2017, 12.2% of Latinos in Texas had diabetes vs. 10.2% of non-Latino whites. Of greater concern is the fact that up to 600,000 of Texans do not even know they have the disease.
March 27 is Diabetes Alert Day
On March 27, 2018 several communities, including many health advocates in San Antonio, TX will be working to inform the community about this disease. Diabetes must be taken serious, but we need your help! To take action we invite you to participate in the following activities: Take the diabetes risk test (available in English and ...
Childhood trauma is a rising crisis in California. Trauma like childhood poverty and abuse have ripple effects on the state's public health, education, and juvenile and criminal justice systems. Teachers and law enforcement are rarely trained on how to deal with traumatized kids. Not to mention the affect on children's brains, bodies, and futures. To raise awareness about childhood trauma and better serve kids in California (38.9% Latino), 100 health professionals and advocacy groups created the the California Campaign to Combat Childhood Adversity in 2014. The group is now pushing five big policy strategies to address childhood trauma in the California Legislature. And they've created a toolkit to help other state advocates do the same. "Often people think about trauma, ...
Nearly 9 of 10 teachers wake up, get in cars, and drive solo to Arlington Public Schools every day in Arlington County, Va. (15.4% Latino). This clogs the streets and pollutes the air outside schools. So, with the student and staff populations set to rise in coming years, how could Arlington get its staff and parents to drive less, and instead use healthier transportation options like ride-sharing, walking, biking, and mass transit? They tried "transportation demand management," or TDM. TDM is the opposite of building bigger roads and parking lots. It focuses on helping people use alternatives to driving. "At its most basic level, TDM is a program of information, encouragement and incentives provided by local or regional organizations to help people know about and use all ...
Minorities don't trust police. Police don't trust minorities. You can see this dynamic in any viral video of police-associated violence across the nation. What is harder to see is how this "fraught relationship" impacts the mental, emotional, and behavioral health of both police officers and minorities like Latinos, according to a trustnottrauma.org report. That's why a new program is taking a new approach—trauma training—to rebuild police-community trust and relationships in Newark, N.J.
Why Newark?
Communities rely on police departments to "protect and serve." The police, in turn, rely on community support and cooperation. But this model doesn't always work in harmony, according to RAND. Newark (34% Latino) is a prime example. In 2011, New Jersey's American Civil ...
Food stamp recipients who buy fruits and veggies can get up to $40 more a month to buy extra avocados, squash, and other fresh produce, thanks to a new program to help Latino and other low-income families eat healthier, Kaiser Health News reports. This "Más Fresco" ("More Fresh") program started in 2017. It's for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties in California. Most of the program's 1,153 participants are Latino. "For every dollar worth of food stamps enrollees spend on fresh produce in a given month, they receive a one-to-one match, up to $10, $20 or $40, which they can spend only on more fruits and vegetables," according to Kaiser Health News.
Latinos Need Healthy Food Options
Latino families lack ...
Bus service is slow and sporadic in eastern Suffolk County, N.Y. A 15-minute drive can take two hours by bus. This makes it hard to get to a doctor for people in this 19% Latino county. Take it from Byrony Freij, a local Spanish-speaking pediatric counselor. She told Newsday that some households share one car, which is usually in use during the day. Undocumented residents avoid driving. Hours on a bus to visit a pediatrician is difficult for mothers recovering from childbirth. That's why Freij is happy to see that nonprofit Organización Latino-Americana is launching a free transportation program to help Latino and all residents get to pediatric and other doctor appointments. "It's a huge relief," Freji told Newsday. "But it’s a shame that it has to be a nonprofit that ...
If you're in the hospital, your health and your pocketbook are taking a hit. A TV station in Seattle (6.5% Latino) tried a unique way—buying debt from people's medical expenses, then forgiving it(!)—to improve the lives of locals dealing with cancer, The Hill reports. Buy why?
'Big Issues with the Bills' TV station KIRO reporter Jesse Jones – a cancer survivor himself – reported a story about a cancer patient that was struggling to pay her bills and couldn’t afford further treatments. Many Latinos face this situation. 27% of Latinos have no usual health care provider and 15% have no health insurance, according to a Salud America! research review. These Latinos often end up seeking routine healthcare in the emergency room, which can be very costly. After his ...
