News from First 5 Santa Cruz County

A Bit Better

News From First 5 Santa Cruz County

January is Positive Parenting Awareness Month

Positive Parenting is Vital to Well-being

by Nicole Young, Triple P Coordinator

Dear parents, foster parents, grandparents, relative caregivers, and other adults raising children and teens: we’re celebrating YOU in January 2021! The County Board of Supervisors has partnered with First 5 Santa Cruz County to declare January as Positive Parenting Awareness Month for the ninth year in a row. Other California counties are doing the same, and the California Assembly will pass a resolution any day now, declaring January 2021 as Positive Parenting Awareness Month across the state.

What does this mean? It means that local and state elected officials recognize that positive parenting is vital to the current and future well-being of children, families, and the entire community. It means that across the state, we’re calling attention to the fact that raising children and youth to be confident, capable, caring, and independent is the most demanding, exhausting, important, rewarding (and underpaid) job many of us will ever have. It means that as a community, we recognize that being a parent or caregiver can be difficult, confusing, stressful, and isolating during “normal” times, and this past year has been nowhere near normal.

Triple P has Family Quality Time Calendars

with Parenting Tips and Ideas for the month of January

Here are the links to the

Family Quality Time Calendars:

Online in English and Spanish

& Printable in English and Spanish

Santa Cruz County ACEs Aware

Network of Care Sessions Continue

Join us for the second session of the Santa Cruz County (SCC) ACEs Network of Care Learning Series on January 14, 2021, Connecting Across Sectors, presented by Wendy Ellis and Jeff Hild of the Center for Community Resilience (CCR) at George Washington University.

This bilingual, virtual event will build on the concepts and tools covered in the November 12 session on The Pair of ACEs in Practice. Join us as we continue to learn ways to address Adverse Childhood Experiences by addressing root causes and barriers in Adverse Community Environments through policy and practice changes.

Click here to Register Now-

Last Day to Register is January 12th, 2021

"We look forward to working with all partners to advance our collective awareness of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and our ability as a community to collectively prevent them, and support the children, families and individuals who have experienced them.”

~ David Brody, Executive Director of First 5 Santa Cruz County.

Learn more about the ACEs Aware Network of Care January 14th Event

California Surgeon General 's Report

On December 10th, 2020 California Surgeon General, Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, released the Roadmap to Resilience outlining a sector-specific and cross-sector approach to addressing ACEs and toxic stress.

“ACEs and toxic stress are a public health crisis in California and throughout our nation. But ACEs are not destiny,” said California Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris. “I am thrilled to share this report as a roadmap for prevention, early detection and cross-sector, coordinated interventions to address ACEs and toxic stress in a systematic way. None of these strategies are sufficient alone and each extends the reach of others.”

To read more visit the report website: Roadmap for Resilience

To watch the December 10th webinar unveiling of the Roadmap for Resilience you can visit the ACEs Aware Educational Events page

December Supply Giveaway

On December 5th, 2020 First 5 Santa Cruz County participated in its third emergency supply giveaway in partnership with the County Office of Education's Child Development Resource Center. Thanks to supplies received from First 5 California and the California Department of Social Services 161 family child care providers and 37 centers received adult disposable masks, cloth child masks, hand sanitizer, hand soap, disinfectant spray, paper towels, gloves and a CD of children’s songs (created and gifted by Toby Salciccia from Happy Days Children’s Learning Center).

Thank you to all who participated in putting this together!

Community Announcements

Local Pediatric Dental Appointments Available

There are openings at local clinics for pediatric dental appointments for children 0 to 3. Please check out the flyer below for more information about the importance of bringing young children in to have regular dental checkups.

Click here to see the flyer with more information

Local Assistance Available to Help with Health Insurance and CalFresh Applications

Having access to health insurance and food for our families is of vital importance. If you, a family member, friend or neighbor need help completing or renewing an application to county or state health insurance programs Certified Application Assistors can answer your questions and offer free application assistance. Call an Application Assistor directly at any of the agencies listed on this flyer for more information.