Monterey County Families & Children Digest

Birth centers are popular options for families who want to deliver a baby outside of a hospital. Nineteen of them closed in California in the past decade, deepening the state’s maternity care crisis.

Montage Health is opening a new 16-bed mental health in Monterey for children, teens and young adults.

Alisal Union and Monterey Peninsula Unified School Districts are providing free meals through June and July to children under 18 years old at designated sites.

The state is directly investing money for low-income students and all newborns to attend college. After two years, the program is still not widely known by the students who need the most financial assistance.

Heiress Paris Hilton is on a mission to shine a light on the "troubled teen industry," a largely unregulated multibillion-dollar industry that is gaining public scrutiny for alleged abuse of vulnerable youths.

Evictions have exacerbated homelessness nationwide, increasing the rate of homeless infants and toddlers. Most of those children are not enrolled in early education programs.

200 laptop computers were donated to Youth Alliance by AT&T, Monterey Peninsula Foundation and Human-I-T, for distribution to Hollister and Gilroy residents lacking "digital basics".

The state is to implement long-awaited new guidelines in 2025 despite some calls for a year’s delay.

The Pacific Grove City Council will hear the costs of building a temporary skatepark at the City Hall parking lot during the next council meeting.

Learning loss during the pandemic hit California’s low-income students hardest. An agreement requires the state to focus spending there.

The Assembly has until the end of January to decide the fate of the youth tackle football bill, which would prevent kids under 12 from playing the sport to protect them from brain trauma.

California’s projected budget deficit of close to $38 billion likely means some cuts are coming. Among them, Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed ending the California State Park Adventure Pass, which offers free access to some state parks for fourth graders.

Pasadena is the only California city named a travel destination for 2024 by The New York Times. This comes despite the Los Angeles-area city being just the 45th-largest city in the state.

The 2024 California Children’s Report Card from an organization called Children Now noted that the state has failed to improve economic disparities for students. The report also dings the state for things like STEM offerings, early intervention and special education.

San Diego Unified School District has received more than $700 million in federal and state relief funds since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, with these funds ending, some schools could be facing serious deficits.

Leaders of a parental rights advocacy group announced they’re planning to sue California Attorney General Rob Bonta over the way his office has characterized a 2024 ballot initiative they authored.

Two-thirds of community college students in California admit to struggling to meet basic needs. The California Community Colleges’ Student Ambassador Program has empowered more than 50 students to act as resource guides to help them.

A law passed by the California legislature in 2023 has gone into effect banning licensed gun holders from bringing their firearms to places like playgrounds, churches and casinos. The law faces an ongoing challenge in the federal court system.

The dawn of 2024 meant that California’s minimum wage rose from $15.50 to $16 an hour. That puts the Golden State at the second-highest minimum wage for a U.S. state, trailing only Washington state at $16.28 an hour.

A 2021 law passed by the California legislature went into effect Jan. 1, requiring major retailers to maintain an aisle of toys marketed to people of either gender. The bill’s author, Evan Low, said the legislation will help kids “express themselves freely and without bias.”

California adopted several laws to increase access to contraception and abortion after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. The latest one eliminates out-of-pocket charges for birth control for millions of Californians.

In a report released by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, researchers instead lay out a plan for what society might do to improve adolescents’ interactions with social media.

Under a new law, employees in California are guaranteed five paid sick days a year, two days more than previously. Worker advocacy groups say the benefit is needed, but business groups warn of additional costs.

Federal funding for domestic violence shelters and housing programs is declining. Advocates want the state to step in, but with a record projected deficit new spending is unlikely.

The new company takes a child into a fantasy world via a storytelling video created through artificial intelligence tools where the kid is the hero of the tale and can learn about self-confidence and problem solving in the process.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta has formally backed an August motion by two law groups to keep the Temecula Valley Unified School District from being able to notify parents about transgender children or censor instruction about race. A hearing for the motion is scheduled for Jan. 24.

The Exclusive Poultry Inc. agreed to pay $3.8 million in wages, damages and penalties in part for hiring children for dangerous work. The case is one of hundreds federal labor officials investigated last year.

By declining to hear a conservative group’s challenge, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a California ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ youth. California is one of 22 states to ban this practice.

Although the federal government is providing four free COVID tests per month, that’s not the only way to get them. Aetna and Blue Shield of California members can be reimbursed for up to eight at-home tests per month, while Kaiser Permanente is offering discounts on tests.

California’s “failure to protect” law allows child welfare agencies to take kids from households scarred by domestic violence. Advocates say the separation can worsen a family’s trauma.

Christmas at Closter Park returns to Salinas for its third year with different family activities live performances, arts and crafts, real snow and raffled Christmas trees, which sponsors decorate and donate.

In 2020, the state agreed to a settlement in a lawsuit that claimed too many students were not learning to read. As part of that agreement, the state spent over $50 million on 75 schools with the lowest reading scores.