2020 Voter Guide | To Improve The Lives Of California’s Children

True representation requires us all to elect leaders with a vision to create a just and equitable world for every child in our nation and in California. All of our newly elected leaders will face critical policy decisions that have the power to improve the lives of children of color, and children living in poverty. Our dual pandemic, institutional racism and COVID-19 have created a new level of urgency to understand the complexities and needs of our communities.

TCP in collaboration with The Children’s Defense Fund-CA is launching, “Building California’s Future 2020: A Voter Guide to championing policies that improve the lives of California’s children.” Learn about the issues being faced by children and families and what to consider as we, the people, engage in civic engagement.

Urgent Federal Action Needed to Protect California’s Children and Families from Impacts of COVID-19

Federal action is urgently needed to help California families keep food on their tables, maintain stable housing and access health care services. 

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to disproportionately devastate California’s Latinx, Black, Pacific Islander, and immigrant children and families, while these very communities shoulder the front-line work keeping our state’s economy running. For example, in L.A. County, Pacific Islanders suffer the highest infection rate of any racial or ethnic group at more than 2,500 cases per 100,000 residents, six times higher than for white people. At the state level, among children, Latinx children make up 2 in 3 cases, despite making up less than half of the state’s population of children. 

Our children deserve to see our country care for every member of our society by valuing and supporting them through this unprecedented crisis. Without federal support, trigger cuts to health and safety-net programs could be back on the table.  

We partnered with the Coalition on Human Needs to highlight alarming inequities that California children and families are facing including housing instability, food insecurity, income losses, and access to health care.

FRONTIMAGE TCP Covid 19 Fact Sheet
BACKFINAL TCP Covid 19 Fact Sheet

Legal Partnering for Child Health: Snapshots of Programs Across California

In its prioritization of early childhood development, California must seek to create a coordinated system of programs, policies, and services that promotes the healthy development of, and responds to the needs of, young children and their families. 

Young children are able to thrive when their families have access to the tools and resources necessary for a healthy and nurturing environment. A team of providers, legal advocates, and family specialists offers a new family the concrete support and services that address a family’s needs and help minimize stress caused by challenges.

The integration of legal partners into the early childhood system is a community-level intervention to advance health equity and address the social determinants of health. 

Our new brief highlights five legal partnering initiatives serving families with young children in different regions of the state.

Each snapshot of the programs discusses practices and offers strategies to help policymakers in California ensure young children, particularly those from marginalized communities, feel safe, healthy, and ready to learn.

Supporting Oral Health Care Access for Children Living in the Border Region of California

For children living in the border region of California, oral health needs like toothaches and cavities are exacerbated by a limited number of dental providers, declining rates of health coverage, and the current climate of anti-immigrant policies and rhetoric that threatens the well-being of many families. 

We know that good oral health in children is linked to overall health and academic opportunity, yet for too many children in the border region, multiple social determinants, including poverty, family education level, and immigration status, hinder access to oral health care—factors that are uniquely compounded for children living in the border region. 

In partnership with community organizations and providers in San Diego and Imperial Counties, we sought to better understand the state of oral health care for children, and especially children in immigrant families, living in the region.
 
In Supporting Oral Health Care Access for Children Living in the Border Region, we document the unique challenges in supporting the oral health needs of children in the region and provide recommendations for ensuring all families, regardless of immigration status, can safely access quality oral health care.

The Effect of Hostile Immigration Policies on California Children’s Early Childhood Development

What do you do when a worried parent asks you to take care of their four-
year-old if Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deports them? For
early care educators, childcare workers, home visitors, and preschool
teachers, these types of questions have become more common.

Our latest report, The Effect of Hostile Immigration Policies on
California Children’s Early Childhood Development, written in
partnership with Early Edge California, examines the effects of this hostile
climate on our youngest Californians and the early childhood workers who
support them.

Nearly half of California’s three million children under five years old
are children of immigrants.

With the spread of anti-immigrant policies, many immigrant families are
fearful of utilizing health, nutrition, early education, and essential services
that impact their children’s wellbeing. Over 1.3 million California children
are at risk of losing out on their basic needs, which, compounded by the
stress, anxiety and instability their families are experiencing, has a direct
impact on their healthy, normal development.

As caregivers, early childhood education (ECE) providers understand the
importance of basic needs like food, housing and health care to a child’s
early learning and development. Yet ECE staff face new challenges of how
to support families facing fear, economic stressors, and disruptions to their
lives. With one in five early childhood providers identifying as immigrants
themselves, the emotional burden can be exceptionally high.

By building the capacity of our early childhood workforce to respond to
trauma, creating safe spaces for all families, and fostering connections
between child-serving systems, we can better support early childhood staff
and the children they serve. With unprecedented commitments to early
childhood development made by California state leaders like Governor
Gavin Newsom, now is the time to make sure our youngest Californians are
set up to thrive.

California Telehealth Developments and Children’s Access to Care

Our recent brief, California Telehealth Developments and Children’s Access to Care, summarizes the state of recent advancements in children’s health through telehealth, or the delivery of health services remotely via technology.

As a result of technological advancements and lower costs, the adoption of telehealth has become more widespread as a critical tool for improving access to care and health outcomes for children in the state.

California has passed extensive telehealth policy reform and has sought to keep pace with the rapidly evolving technology. The policy developments of 2019 are indicative of a growing recognition of the value of telehealth; however, the new regulations do not necessarily work to improve access to care for low-income children and families who need it most.

With increased investment in telehealth, California can dramatically improve access to remote care for children across the state, but it will require a child-centered approach to telehealth that has not yet been fully recognized. There remains significant work to be done in California to develop child-centered telehealth policies that address the needs of California’s most vulnerable children.

Public Charge: Would it Affect Me?

NEW RESOURCE: Public Charge: Would It Affect Me?

Though the changes to the public charge rule were blocked by the courts, now is good time for families to prepare and learn if the rule would affect them should it go into effect. Use our roadmap to find out if you would be affected by public charge:

You’ll also notice a blank space on the fact sheet. Feel free to add a sticker with your local legal resources or other up-to-date messages for your community!

Translated materials in Spanish and API languages coming soon!

Your Child Has Dental Coverage! Flyers

More kids than ever have dental coverage. Pediatric dental coverage is included in all Covered California health plans for the first time. And all children enrolled in Medi-Cal also have dental coverage. However, many families may not realize that their children have dental coverage or how to obtain dental care.

Below are three fact sheets that address the differences in Medi-Cal dental coverage in Los Angeles County, Sacramento County, and the rest of the state. They are available in English, Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, Hmong, Khmer, Korean, Tagalog, Tongan and Vietnamese.

If you are interested in printing for mass distribution, please contact frontdoor@childrenspartnership.org.

Potential Effects of Public Charge Changes on California’s Children

In partnership with Kidsdata and the Population Reference Bureau, our brief “Potential Effects of Public Charge Changes on California’s Children” provides an overview of what the proposed public charge regulation, the chilling effect it would have on the use of public programs and the negative impact it would have on the health and wellbeing of children in immigrant families.

Health Begins Where Children Live, Learn, and Play: Advancing Health Equity

Our new brief, Health Begins Where Children Live, Learn, and Play: Advancing Health Equity, provides examples of how health plans, providers, and states are incorporating Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) strategies into their current activities. The Children’s Partnership is working to ensure that policymakers recognize the urgent need to look beyond the doctor’s office, and begin addressing the conditions in which children are born, grow, live, go to school, and play in order to support a bright future for every child.