CWDA Blog - Our Take

Overview

CWDA Blog – Our Take

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Ripple Effect of ACA Repeal Goes Well Beyond Health Care
Share Your Medi-Cal #ProtectOurCare & #Fight4OurHealth Stories

By now, the numbers are well known and appear daily in news reports and commentaries: About 3.7 million Californians would lose their Medi-Cal health care coverage if Congress moves forward with the promise to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Another 1.2 million would lose the federal subsidies that have made coverage affordable to them via the California health benefit exchange.

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New Year Brings Major Change for Child Sex Trafficking Victims: No Longer Treated as Criminals

Child welfare agencies, children’s advocates and community providers are reminding their partners and the public that the new year marks a major turning point in California’s efforts to help children who are victims of sex trafficking: These children will no longer be treated as criminals.

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Governor has Opportunity to Make it Clear: There’s #NoSuchThing as a Child Prostitute

A 14-year-old girl is raped. Repeatedly. Law enforcement arrives on the scene. Officers determine there is reasonable cause the crime of rape occurred. This child has been raped and sexually abused by multiple people in just 24 hours. They then arrest … the child.

Wait.  What?  Confused?

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Flawed, Rushed Family First Bill Undermines Thoughtful Child Welfare Reform
Reasonable fixes should be adopted by Congress prior to passage.

In the world of policy, decision makers try to balance the needs of various constituencies to drive toward incremental change. Reform efforts that start with the best of intentions can have unintended consequences, often for the very people they are trying to help. However, when we know what the consequences are before legislation is passed, we can follow the cardinal rule of any intervention: First, do no harm.

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Adult Protective Services Workers Save Lives
With elder abuse cases rising and California's aging population growing, a strong, statewide training program is needed now more than ever.

Imagine getting a call that your elderly father – who you thought died two years ago – is alive. An Adult Protective Services worker shares that your father, who lives 100 miles from you, who you thought succumbed to complications of a traumatic brain injury, is the victim of physical, financial and psychological abuse. For several years, he’s been isolated and neglected by two people you thought were his caregivers.

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Child Sex Trafficking Victims Deserve Protection and Support

The headline reads, “Dozens arrested in sex trafficking bust in Colorado.” Buried deeper in the story from April 27 about the adults arrested for trafficking and prostitution: among the children recovered was a 15-year-old victim who was transported to Colorado from California.

That 15-year-old child could have come from your community.

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Days Numbered for Law that’s Pushed Children Deeper into Poverty

It’s the most classist, racist and sexist law in California human services policy, and its more than two-decade run is closer to coming to an end.

Last week, the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Health and Human Services took action to repeal the Maximum Family Grant (MFG) policy in the CalWORKs program. Under this law, a child born into a family receiving CalWORKs assistance is not eligible for assistance unless the pregnancy is the result of rape, incest or a failure in contraception.

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Children In Poverty Can’t Wait Any Longer For A Decent Life

Could you live on $704 a month in California?

Of course the answer is no. It is unconscionable that we expect low-income families trying to rebuild their lives to pull themselves out of poverty with so little assistance. But $704 is the maximum amount of assistance a family of three receives in the CalWORKs program, a result of policy decisions made in California over a number of years.

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CWDA President Trent Rhorer, Sen. Holly Mitchell, Asm. Tony Thurmond and Phil Ansell Director of the Los Angeles County's Homeless Initiative prepare before an Assembly Joint Informational Hearing on Housing and Homelessness in California on February 22, 2016.

Senate and Assembly Look to CalWORKs Housing Support Program as Model to End Homelessness

Homelessness and housing affordability continue to dominate legislative attention this session. And the CalWORKs Housing Support Program is being held up as a model in our state’s quest to end homelessness.

State, county and community leaders testified before separate Senate and Assembly hearings on challenges and opportunities to ending homelessness. Speaker after speaker pointed to the “housing first” model that the CalWORKs Housing Program is based upon as key to how to address California’s human crisis of homelessness.

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CWDA joins Pro Tem Kevin de Leon and Senators at press conference at Mercy House in Sacramento to announce "No Place like Home" initiative.

Welcome New Year’s Gift for Struggling Children and Families

It’s no secret, and should be no surprise, that California faces a growing problem of housing affordability that threatens the ability of our state’s economy to continue its recovery as it threatens the ability of struggling families to find safe, quality places to live that don’t place them on the edge of financial ruin.

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New Look, Same Dynamic CWDA

Visiting our new website for the first time and noticing we look a little different? Rest assured we’re the same CWDA - promoting a human services system that encourages self-sufficiency of families and communities, and protects vulnerable children and adults from abuse and neglect. We’re still committed to Advocating, Educating and Collaborating. CWDA - Advancing Human Services for the Welfare of All Californians.