childrenspartnership.org

Since the beginning of the Trump administration, harsh immigration policies and anti-immigrant rhetoric have instilled a deep and growing fear inside many communities, threatening the health, security, and well-being of children in immigrant families. In a survey The Children’s Partnership conducted of health providers in California, 90 percent reported an increase in children experiencing anxiety and fear related to their heightened awareness of the possibility of detention and deportation, because of the current national climate. Children in immigrant families are enduring toxic stress, anxiety, and other longstanding negative health impacts due to unjust policies that separate families, traumatize children, and go against American values of protecting children. As an organization that focuses on putting our children’s well-being first in policymaking, The Children’s Partnership denounces the Trump administration’s policies and implores Congress to stop these cruel practices, put our nation’s values into action, and advance policies that defend and protect the dignity and rights of all children.

The most important takeaway was a shared understanding and urgency to break the cycle of abuse, neglect, and trauma for youth– both before system involvement and while in contact with the child welfare or juvenile justice systems. * A five-jurisdiction panel representing California, Georgia, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Wisconsin shared examples of effective multi-system coordination and collaboration, including innovative solutions to the challenges presented by dual status youth cases. Denise Herz and Carly Dierkhising, researchers from the California State University, Los Angeles, presented multijurisdictional findings concluding that youth who have contact with both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems are at an increased risk for negative outcomes. As follow-up to the convening, The Children’s Partnership, with input from convening attendees, is developing a Policy Roadmap to ensure youth impacted by both the child welfare and juvenile justice systems are safe, healthy, and thriving.

Co-sponsored by The Children’s Partnership, the Children’s Specialty Care Coalition, the California Children’s Hospital Association, Family Voices of California, and the American Academy of Pediatrics-CA, the lunch briefing was convened to educate policymakers about the importance of telehealth in delivering, and improving access to, specialty care for California’s children and adolescents. The briefing particularly highlighted the importance of telehealth for children with special health care needs or chronic conditions; children living in rural, and also urban areas of the state; and care delivered in clinical and also non-clinical settings, such as the patient’s home. By the end of the first panel, there was not a dry eye in the room, as Dr. Pooja Mittal, a family physician and parent, shared her daughters’ story, and Shannon Raber, an Acute Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner from UCSF’s Neuro-Oncology Clinic, shared her patients’, Sean and Jacob’s, stories. To further explore telehealth policies in California, Cynthia Smiley, Chief of the Benefits Division at the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS), presented on the Department’s oversight of telehealth policy, as well as key considerations as DHCS develops its 2018 Update on telehealth coverage and payment rules under both Medi-Cal and the California Children’s Services (CCS) and Genetically Handicapped Persons Program (GHPP).

On January 26, the room at GuideWell Innovation Center in Orlando was filled with pediatric providers, health centers, schools and school districts, school nurses, parents, child care centers, state government officials, national associations, non-profit advocacy organizations, health plans, and academic institutions. Convened by The Children’s Partnership, Nemours Children’s Health System, and  Winter Park Health Foundation, this diverse group of experts in children’s health traveled to Florida from thirteen different states to lay the groundwork for building a Roadmap for Action. The telehealth programs across these 5 states are excellent models to examine because they have been able to improve access to care while lowering the rate of emergency department visits, missed school days, and missed work days for parents. These conversations are our first step in developing a Roadmap for Action which will help guide interested states and communities across the country to create, replicate, or expand successful school and child care telehealth programs.