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Products -- SFTS Newsletter Archives
SFTS June 2004 Newsletter
NEW RESOURCES
First 5 California, at its May 20, 2004 meeting, unanimously approved Safe from the Start's
proposal for $1.3 million in funding for three additional years ($433,333 per year).
Speaking on our behalf at the meeting were Mitch Brown, Chief of Police,
City of Oroville; Gloria Diaz from the Vacaville FIRST program;
Sharon Donnelson, Feather River Tribal Health and our Butte county contact;
Maureen McSweeney, Solano Community College; Holly Reynolds,
Fairplex Child Development Center and our LA county contact; Daria Waetjen,
Orange County Dept. of Education and our Orange county contact; and our external evaluator,
Dr. Gregory Robinson, from California State University, Fullerton. Safe
from the Start would like to publicly thank all of these people for coming to Sacramento to
support our efforts before the Commission, and for speaking so powerfully about how our
initiative has made a difference. We would also like to thank the Commission for giving us
the money to continue this important work for the next three years.
The past few months have been very busy for Southern California SFTS partners! Holly Reynolds,
Los Angeles county contact, coordinated a forum held at UCLA with Dr. Bruce Perry for 175 people on April 8
through the Southern California Association for the Education of Young Children. On April 21,
Barbara Marquez O'Neill and her colleagues with the Ventura County Partnership for Safe Families
hosted nearly 400 participants at the "Abuse Across the Lifespan Conference Symposium: The Connection
Between Perinatal Substance Abuse and Family Violence: Research to Practice." Presentations were made
by Dr. Perry and Dr. Ira Chasnoff.
The Violence Prevention Coalition of Orange County is honoring Chief Andy Hall,
Westminster Police Department, on June 4 in Costa Mesa as one of the 8 Annual Ambassador of Peace
Award recipients. The honor comes in the Public Service Award category, noting work Chief Hall
and his department have done on the Safe from the Start: Reducing Children's Exposure to Violence
initiative. Chief Hall has been one of the long time law enforcement supporters and promoters of
the project. Congratulations to Chief Hall and the Westminster Police Department!
NEW RESEARCH
Education Connection's "Decision making is Still a Work in Progress for Teenagers," describes
research that shows that the brain's frontal lobes, the site of emotions, personality, cognitive
and motor functions, continue to develop through adolescence. The results suggest that while
adults can use rational decision-making processes when facing emotional decisions, adolescent
brains are not yet equipped to think things through in the same way.
For more information, check out
www.brainconnection.com/topics/?main=news-in-rev/teen-frontal
When kids struggle in school, parents may be tempted to help them do their homework, or withhold
privileges until their grades go up. But these controlling strategies can actually make an
underperforming child do more poorly, new research has found. In this study, published in
Child Development, researchers tracked mother-and-child pairs to see how the mother's parenting
style affected the child's performance. The researchers found low achieving children showed
success when their mothers reacted to the child's struggles in an encouraging way, by nodding
or helping the child think through a strategy to solve the problem.
For more information, check out
www.brainconnection.com
According to an article in USA Today, psychiatric drug use by kids has soared in the past 15 years.
In the latest survey, spending on drugs for conditions such as attention deficit/ hyperactivity
disorder and depression jumped 77% in the past three years. Most psychiatric medicines taken by
children haven't been proven safe or effective for children, but can be prescribed legally because
they are approved for adults. Research on children is rapidly growing. In the past several years,
submissions of studies testing psychiatric drugs in kids have tripled.
To view this entire article, use the search capabilities at
www.usatoday.com
This British research review finds that children living with domestic violence, or whose parents have
severe health problems, including drug and alcohol misuse, want age-appropriate information to help
them understand what is going on in their family. Most of the time, however, they keep quiet and
rarely seek professional help. Their fear of violence, not surprisingly, is made worse by the unpredictability
of their parents' moods.
For more information, check out
www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/socialpolicy/514.asp
TRAINING OPPORTUNITY
The California Attorney General's Office will be hosting an affiliated training institute for law enforcement,
in conjunction with the 9th International Conference on Family Violence, on Friday and Saturday, September 17-18,
2004, at the Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center in San Diego. This two-day training will be sponsored
by the Attorney General's Safe from the Start Initiative and the Family Violence and Sexual Assault Institute,
and it will focus on providing tools, resources and strategies to improve interviews with children who have been
exposed to violence, both for prosecution purposes and to reduce trauma, as well as brain science information.
This two-day event is FREE but is limited to the first 100 professionals. POST certification is pending.
Please contact Katie Rogers, conference coordinator at (858) 623-2777, ext. 403.
After the training institute, stay on in San Diego and attend the 9th International Conference on Family Violence,
which includes a law enforcement track, September 19-22, 2004. Learn more about the role of the first responder in
child abuse, domestic violence, elder abuse, sexual assault, and youth violence, along with new research and the
latest in intervention and prevention strategies. Please contact Katie Rogers, conference coordinator at (858)
623-2777, ext. 403.
On June 23-25, 2004, in San Jose, CA, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention will
sponsor the Silicon Valley Internet Crimes Against Children Conference, which will provide law enforcement
officers and prosecutors with information on investigative techniques and legal issues regarding child sexual
exploitation on the Internet.
For more information or to register online, check out
www.svicac.org/general_info.htm
FUNDING NEWS
Grants awarded by the BEA Foundation are directed towards projects that encourage safe and supportive
communities that are free from crime and violence and provide children with access to adequate food,
shelter, and basic services. The grants also support programs that promote school readiness by age 5
and increase the availability and quality of early care.
Grants are awarded in the company's operating locations, which are San Francisco and Silicon Valley,
with awards ranging from $1,000 to $20,000. Applications are accepted four times a year, with the next
deadline on August 15.
For more information, check out
www.bea.com/framework.jsp?CNT=grant_program.htm
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