Intimate partner violence has escalated over the past two years. Research points to economic distress, increased time indoors with abusive partners, and worsening mental health as exacerbating factors.
I wanted to better understand this crisis, which often flies under the radar. So I reached out to several advocates and practitioners to find out more about intimate partner violence and how some organizations are leveraging community healing practices to address the problem.
My family’s history is deeply shaped by our nation’s history of discriminatory housing policies.
I’ve written about my grandfather’s story and about how redlining affected my family. But I never fully explored how this legacy continues to impact the housing situation of my family and many others. The legacy of redlining and housing discrimination has exacerbated California’s already devastating housing crisis for the Black community.
The COVID vaccine for children is safe and effective, and it’s the best way to protect not only children but also the larger community.
Was I concerned about the risks of the vaccine? No. COVID is a far greater threat to my son, who has to go to the ICU when exposed to the kind of germs that give healthy kids the sniffles. The vaccination also benefits my healthy daughter, who won’t have her schooling interrupted by quarantines.
While California has one of the lowest COVID-19 transmission rates in the nation and a high vaccination rate, the reopening of schools has proven rocky.
To better understand how the reopening effort is playing out on the ground, I spoke with educators from Oakland Unified School District and Los Angeles Unified School District — two public-school districts that primarily serve students of color.
We made the decision to send our son back to in-person school last year despite his vulnerability to infection because our district came up with a reasonable, safe plan to make it possible: Every student had to wear a mask.
Just as we were gearing up for a mostly safe year back at school, the Clovis Unified school board decided to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory and create unnecessary confusion over which mask policies would be enforced, despite clear state guidance.
It’s the kind of case attorney Helen Tran deals with all too often. An Asian-American small business owner came into her office at Neighborhood Legal Services in Los Angeles begging for help with a surprise, five-figure medical bill.
The woman had health insurance. Yet, due to a mix-up caused by misinformation from her insurer, she’d received two chemotherapy treatments from an out-of-network provider that she had believed was in network. This simple mistake ended up devastating her financially.
As federal and state policy makers make plans for infrastructure and budgetary spending, let’s not forget to invest in the infrastructure of care too, particularly for children with disabilities.
The framework of support that makes it possible for families to care for children with complex care needs safely, in their own homes and in their local school systems, is part of our infrastructure of care.
Local governments invest a huge percentage of their budgets in policing, often to the detriment of other community services. Yet the results of this enormous taxpayer outlay are mediocre at best.
That’s why advocates across the country are calling on governments to reduce police budgets and reallocate those funds to services that tackle the underlying social and economic factors generating crime and perpetuating structural racism. These include programs such as job training, mental health services, homelessness prevention and basic income supports.
Parents of children with fragile, medically complex disabilities are expected to provide the same level of care during emergencies that intensive care units provide, but they’re expected to do it in the home.
The stakes are high: If you make a mistake, your child could die. That’s not a comforting thing to tell a new parent of a fragile baby.
While President Barack Obama’s 2010 health reform bill, the Affordable Care Act, greatly expanded insurance access, it excluded undocumented immigrants across the country. This likely contributed to COVID-19’s disproportionate impact on undocumented Californians. Health equity and immigrant rights advocates have been urging California leaders to broaden health coverage for nearly a decade.