In California, over 98 percent of newborns are screened for hearing loss. But when it comes to intervention, there is little action to ensure these children are supported.
A bill pending in the California Senate aims to rectify problems with the state’s current Hearing Aid Coverage program and expand hearing aid access to thousands of families across the state.
When Christina Kaviani’s son, 6, doesn’t want to hug a grandparent or friend, Kaviani goes against some parenting methods and doesn’t make him.
To her, it’s a matter of consent.
As an educator on healthy relationships, consent is at the heart of what she teaches.
For children with complex medical needs, palliative care can offer physical relief and also support to families.
However, systemic failures such as a shortage of places that offer palliative care services for children, and also a shortage of physicians who do this work, lead to long wait times and administrative hurdles. The issues with the system, according to experts, can be fixed.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, finding nurses to care for medically fragile children at home has become extremely difficult, according to parents of children with disabilities and home health agencies.
The shortage has prompted calls for California’s governor and legislature to increase Medi-Cal reimbursement rates for home nurses by 40 percent.
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders are alcohol-related disorders thought to be the most common birth defects in the western world.
A recently passed California law should make it easier for children affected by these disorders to access special education services. The law goes into effect in January.
Almost all children who experience housing insecurity also experience trauma because of the stress of their situation. California and the federal government recognize this, and require schools to provide these children with additional support.
But experts believe tens of thousands of California children experiencing homelessness fall through the cracks and receive little to no help from their schools.
During the 2019-20 school year, close to 1.3 million children in the nation’s public schools were identified as homeless. But that figure may vastly underestimate the actual number. A Center for Public Integrity analysis found evidence that thousands of school districts are undercounting.
Experts who spoke with Public Integrity said that confusion surrounding the McKinney-Vento law and who qualifies as “doubled-up” can leave many students unidentified and not receiving the support they need in school.
The state cut funding for social and recreational services for children with disabilities 13 years ago, which meant regional centers could no longer pay for summer camps, swimming lessons and other recreational programs for children with disabilities.
Now the centers have to figure out how to reinstate them, which has led to glitches for families trying to access these services.
Many families that foster and ultimately adopt children with disabilities encounter challenges such as receiving insufficient medical supplies to care for the children and incomplete information from child welfare agencies about the children’s health histories.
Foster families and their advocates are working to mend the gaps in the system that can cause undue stress on these children who, in most cases, have already been through trying times before coming into foster care.
A coalition of Latinx parents is suing Harbor Regional Center, alleging discrimination against Latinx children and adults with disabilities and demanding more services.
The lawsuit accuses the center of routinely dismissing Latinx families’ requests for help, of providing less comprehensive services than needed, and of burdening families with unnecessary requirements as well as failing to adequately inform them when services are canceled or changed.