Sacramento County Families & Children Digest

Sacramento County in partnership with United Way is launching a basic income pilot program for qualifying families.

In their September 24 meeting, the Sacramento City Council approved a plan for the first round of youth services funding under the Measure L Children's Fund.

Applications are open for up to 200 low-income Black and Indigenous families in Sacramento County with children age 5 and under as part of a state-funded one-year guaranteed income pilot program.

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.

The Rancho Cordova Youth Center is home to children's book vending machine thanks to a gift from the Rancho Cordova Kiwanis Club.

The Sacramento County Civil Grand Jury released a report on June 14 finding the safety of foster youth was not prioritized.

The Lunch at the Library is offering free meals for kids K-12 at 14 locations throughout Sacramento County.

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.

A Sacramento Superior Court judge has tentatively sided with California Attorney General Rob Bonta over the name of a proposed ballot measure that his office says would “restrict the rights of trans youth.”

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.

Founded in 2008, Sacramento nonprofit Voice of Youth provides mentorship and support for local youth, including funding college tours.

The Living Room and the African American Suicide Prevention Project are presenting “Youth Mental Health First Aid,” Saturday, March 9, and Saturday, March 23. The virtual training instructs participants how to understand and identify signs of addiction and mental illness in youth.

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

Programs are in place that assist tenants on the verge of being evicted. There are also programs and nonprofits that assist families, men, women and children who are experiencing homelessness.

Sia Magadan of Rio Linda has joined United Way California Capital Region as director of its impact department, which runs the nonprofit’s many programs focused on ending poverty for local families starting in school.

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

Despite a $50 million budget deficit, Measure L still requires Sacramento to set aside money for youth programs, Mayor Darrell Steinberg said the city will need to work with partners to meet the law’s goals.

To some, California is seen as a Nirvana of healthy living. But the state’s healthcare system isn’t effectively meeting the needs of many residents, particularly Black children.

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.

A common refrain among anti-transgender activists is that many people experience regret after obtaining gender-affirming surgery. However, that argument is not supported by the science, according to a new article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

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.