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Making Ends Meet: In her latest piece, "Early Childcare Providers Are Spending Their Own Money To Take Care Of LA's Kids,” KPCC's Early Childhood Development Reporter Mariana Dale illustrates the financial struggle of L.A. County childcare providers and the sacrifices they have to make to keep their daycare doors open. The stories – two from family-daycare owners and one from a center director -- paint a picture of dedicated caregivers, whose reliance on state funding can often put them in a position of having to dig into their own pockets or turn to fundraising to give the children in their care a quality experience. Backing up the stories with data, Dale references a recently released First 5 LA-funded report, which shows that on average there is an annual gap of $4,000 to $8,000 per child between the actual cost of quality care and the public funding available. The story ends on a hopeful note, highlighting three examples of municipalities finding solutions to the funding shortage.
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Testing for Lead: A newly released state audit shows that 1.4 million California babies and toddlers were not tested for lead, despite lead testing being both state and federally mandated for children covered by Medi-Cal, reports CALMatters. The extensive audit credits the California Department of Health Care Services and the California Department of Public Health for the failure, as they are the two state agencies responsible for preventing and detecting lead poisoning in the state, reports The Los Angeles Times. Lead exposure can be extremely harmful for children, whose bodies are less equipped at eliminating the toxin, and the irreversible effects can last a lifetime. In her recent article, “Lead paint, banned for decades, still makes thousands of L.A. County kids sick,” health reporter Soumya Karlamangla illustrates the prevalence of lead in the environment of many children in L.A. County, making the audit findings all the more troubling. The Sacramento Bee responded to the audit by listing the areas in Sacramento where children are known to test high for lead.
ACEs Aware: As part of a new law that went into effect January 1, California doctors are now incentivized to voluntarily screen Medi-Cal enrolled children and adults for adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), reports the California Health Report. The initiative is part of a larger campaign led by California Surgeon General Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, in raising awareness about ACEs and their connection with long term negative health consequences. Under the new law, doctors will be reimbursed for each screening, covering children once per year and adults once per lifetime. While the $40 million effort has been hailed as a revolutionary approach to health, what happens after the screening is still unclear, reports by California Healthline. Furthermore, some ACEs do not provide clear intervention strategies such as what to do when a child has a caregiver in prison. Still, the screenings are important because it encourages doctors to have tough conversations that they might not otherwise have with patients and pushes clinics to create pathways of support and services.
Earlier the Better: Early treatment for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is critical to improve outcomes for children on the spectrum, according to a new report that summarizes 12 years of extensive research, reports The New York Times. Published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, authors found that even if a diagnosis of autism is suspected but not yet confirmed, children should still be connected with treatment. Presently, the average age of diagnosis is 4 years old, but according to one of the co-authors of the report, the goal diagnosis age should be well under 2. Since the wait at specialized clinics can be long, the authors of the report hope the findings will encourage pediatricians to become more comfortable referring patients to early intervention programs and special preschool programs so that treatment can begin in the meantime. The report also summarizes the latest ASD research, and suggests that it’s worth offering families the opportunity to look for specific gene causes of autism as it could help parents move forward by offering a possible cause.
Cost of Care: The average cost of delivering a baby –– even with insurance –– has risen to $4,500 in the United States, according to a new study published Health Affairs. Researchers analyzed the insurance claims of 657,061 American women who gave birth between 2008 and 2015 with health insurance from their employer. According to the findings, the average out-of-pocket cost of a vaginal delivery rose from $2,910 in 2008 to $4,314 in 2015 and for cesarean deliveries from $3,364 to $5,161. The rising out-of-pocket costs are caused by insurance companies raising deductible rates, reports Newsweek. There are few restrictions on how plans impose co-pays, deductibles and cost sharing for maternity care. Nearly half of all pregnancies are unplanned according to ABC News, which means women who weren’t planning on becoming pregnant may choose an insurance plan with a high deductible resulting in higher delivery costs later on. According to the lead author of the report, these financial barriers put women at risk for delaying or forgoing certain types of care. "Right now, the U.S. is the only developed country that has experienced rising maternal mortality. We should be trying to remove barriers to getting recommended care," the lead author shared with U.S. News & World Report.
Related article: Health Affairs: The Next Steps To Advance Maternal And Child Health In Medicaid: Filling Gaps In Postpartum Coverage And Newborn Enrollment
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Moms 4 Housing: As Governor Gavin Newsom is expected to set aside more than a billion dollars in the state budget to address the growing homeless crisis, two homeless mothers who have taken over a vacant Oakland home are speaking out about unfair housing practices, challenging corporate landlords who buy up foreclosed homes then jack-up costs so they are not affordable to community members. Single mom Dominique Walker, who is “squatting” in the vacant home, is serving as the spokesperson for Moms 4 Housing, an Oakland-based grassroots organization of unhoused women who believe that all mothers and children deserve a roof over their heads, and to stay in their own community, reports NPR and The Los Angeles Times. Walker and Moms 4 Housing refuse to leave the vacant home, and a judge is expected to rule on their right to stay, reports NPR.
The Kids are Alright: From a very young age transgender children have as much confidence in their gender identity as that of cisgendered children, according to a new study from the University of Washington and as reported by NBC News. After spending four years interviewing 317 transgender kids aged 3 to 12 along with their siblings and a cohort of cisgendered kids, researchers found that there is almost no difference between transgender kids and cisgender kids in both how they express, and the extent to which they identify with, their gender. Researchers also found that their preference for clothing and toys related to their gender did not vary based on how long they’d lived as their birth or authentic gender. “These findings suggest that children might not be simply learning about gender based on what their parents tell them about their own gender or how they treat them early on (which would be about the gender associated with their assigned sex),” a lead author of the report told Reuters Health. The researchers note that the findings do have limitations because most of the children in their study were white and from financially affluent families who were mostly supportive of their gender identity, reports Forbes. The study will continue to follow all of the children into adulthood, reports the Seattle Times.
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Politics and Current Events
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Promises Kept: In her piece, “Big promises for little kids: Has California governor delivered on early education? EdSource reporter Zaidee Stavely provides a look back on Governor Gavin Newsom’s first year in office and the ways in which he’s fulfilled his campaign promises for young children. “[Newsom’s] delivered – on the first few steps,” says Stavely, commending the Governor’s impressive strides while acknowledging he still has a way to go. Ticking off early wins, she mentions the expantion of family leave from six to eight weeks, the increase in home visits for infants and toddlers, and developmental screenings. She also touts the formation of the Early Childhood Action Research Team, which is tasked with developing a Master Plan for Early Learning and Care for the state.
New Year, New Laws: The start of the New Year means new laws going into effect, and LAist and The Los Angeles Times have compiled lists, viewable by category that breakdown how each new piece of legislation impacts California residents. Highlights of new legislation pertaining to kids and families include new consumer privacy laws that prevent corporations from selling the data of individuals under 16, the standardization of medical exemptions for vaccines by doctors so that the California Health Board can easily investigate doctors who offer more than five exceptions a year. Additionally, students up to 5th grade can’t be suspended for disruption and students with unpaid lunch bills won’t be denied access to lunch. For just the top line, KTLA and CBS Los Angeles have compiled a summary of overall bill highlights.
New laws protecting women and maternal health have also gone into effect. This includes mandated racial bias training in hospitals and health care spaces that offer birthing services as a way of combating the African American maternal mortality crisis (for more information, CALMatters offers a video breakdown of the bill) and extended Medicaid mental health coverage for new moms for up to a year (starting in July). Lastly, diapers and menstrual hygiene products are now tax-free for the next two years thanks to Senate Bill 92, as reported by KTLA 5. By eliminating the diaper tax, it’s estimated that families with babies in diapers will save an average of $100 per year.
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End Child Poverty: The U.S. End Child Poverty Campaign has developed a helpful guide to the presidential candidates' stance on ending child poverty, detailing whether the candidate explicitly mentions child poverty of their website; includes policies modeled in "A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty"; or has other relevant policy ideas. The helpful guide provides links to candidates' websites and includes the specific language mentioned that relates to ending child poverty. Click here for this helpful guide.
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January 13 -- Built Environment Policy Advocacy Fund (BEPAF) Informational Webinar for Prospective Applicants, 10 a.m., webinar. Free, click here to register.
January 29 -- Convening with Child Care Providers on Status of AB 2370. 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m., Salvation Army the Siemon Center Central Avenue, 7651 South Central Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90001. Free, click here to register.
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ICYMI: In Case You Missed It, More Great Reads
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