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Happy Holidays from CDF-CA The Children's Defense Fund - California wishes you and your family a wonderful holiday season! Thank you for all the work and advocacy you do on behalf of our children. We look forward to working together with you in 2015 to ensure a level playing field for all of California's children. Beating the Odds
On December 4th, the brightest stars in Hollywood joined Children’s Defense Fund Founder and President Marian Wright Edelman at the 24th Annual CDF Beat the Odds® Awards Gala to honor the achievements of Chase Moore, Timothy Walker, Sequoia Canada, Zachary Bryge, and Elizabeth Lopez, five outstanding high school seniors who have overcome adversity to excel in school and as leaders in their communities. All the Beat the Odds honorees will receive a $10,000 college scholarship and access to academic and career readiness support services throughout their college career and beyond. January 15 Event on Reforming L.A.'s Juvenile Justice System On January 15th, 2015 at 6:00pm in Los Angeles, CDF Founder and President Marian Wright Edelman will join Nell Bernstein, author of the acclaimed book Burning Down the House: The End of Juvenile Prison, in a dialogue with formerly incarcerated young people about how and why Los Angeles County's juvenile justice system must be transformed. This event will mark the release of CDF-CA's juvenile justice policy brief co-written with young people and will push forward youth-driven recommendations for improving the nation's largest juvenile justice system. Connecting Students to Health Coverage School district Superintendents and school health personnel at Compton Unified, El Rancho Unified, Lynwood Unified and Mt. View School District met on December 3rd to discuss the progress each district has made during the 2013-2014 school year in efforts to connect uninsured children and families with health coverage. CDF-CA, in collaboration with the School Superintendents Association (AASA), provides all four school districts with technical assistance all school year long to ensure that schools do all they can to help uninsured students and their families obtain health insurance. We kicked off the 2014-2015 school year with health enrollment activities and events and look forward to continuing to enroll families into coverage in 2015! #Health4All Reintroduced The new legislative session is off to a great start: Senator Ricardo Lara reintroduced the Health for All Act (Senate Bill 4)! SB 4 will expand health coverage to undocumented Californians. CDF-CA is excited to continue our advocacy work with a broad coalition of immigrant rights and health organizations who are committed to ensuring all California families have the dignity of accessible health coverage. We know that the health and well being of immigrant children and families benefits all Californians – we’re all healthier when all are covered. Lost Youth In late October, we co-sponsored an event with Violence Prevention Coalition of Greater Los Angeles, Peace Over Violence, the Violence Policy Center, the Amity Foundation and others to address the crisis of trauma, gun violence and homicide that threatens the lives of youth of color in Los Angeles. The event presented data from Violence Policy Center’s recently released report “Lost Youth” about the more than 600 youth in California who were victims of homicide, as well as the impact this violence has on communities. Our senior policy associate Michelle Newell moderated a productive conversation around these findings, including how and why we are failing youth of color, what trauma-informed interventions look like, and how we can collectively respond to this violence in a way that is humane rather than punitive. Children: LA’s Greatest Investment Our Executive Director Alex Johnson served as a panelist at “Children: LA’s Greatest Investment,” a special early childhood education forum held on October 21st. The forum, co-hosted by LAUP and U.S Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, brought together experts from the public, private and nonprofit sectors to examine issues of quality in early learning and identify key public policy to advance early childhood education in L.A. Speaking on the Policy and Early Learning Agenda panel, Alex challenged the attendees to consider the consequences for not investing in early childhood education. “We should not be simply focusing on providing early care and education to the few, or the deserving, but looking at it as one of the core fundamental pieces in order to develop the whole child,” Alex said. “When you look at juvenile justice, you’re seeing that we are investing hundreds of millions of dollars at the back end, but what we should be doing is investing at the front end.” New Grant This past October, Children’s Defense Fund - California was awarded with a generous grant from the John M. Lloyd Foundation to fund our efforts to address the racial and economic injustice in Los Angeles’s juvenile justice system. We would like express our deep thanks and gratitude to this outstanding foundation for their support - and we look forward to working together to shift the culture in Los Angeles from mass incarceration to one that values and respects every human life. 2015 Women's Policy Summit Join us for the 2015 Women’s Policy Summit in Sacramento on January 14. This annual policy forum will bring together a diverse coalition of women’s and children’s advocates to highlight policies and legislation to advance the health, wealth and power of women and girls in the California. CDF-CA is proud to be a co-sponsor of the Summit. We Moved! We are excited to announce that the Northern California office of the Children’s Defense Fund – California has moved! Our beautiful new office is located at 405 - 14th Street, Suite 1012, Oakland, CA 94612. Make sure to update your contact lists - and definitely stop by to check out our new place! |
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