California's Children

Strange bedfellows: shrinks nix bill banning "gay conversion" for kids

 UPDATE, May 24, 2012: Opposition from several mainstream medical organizations is slowing the passage of SB 1172, the bill that would ban "gay conversion" or reparative therapy for minors by state Senator Ted Lieu (D-Torrance), at left. 

The Sacramento Bee is reporting that the California Psychological Association, California Association for Licensed Professional Clinical Counselors, California Psychiatric Association, and California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists co-authored a letter to Lieu, expressing their opposition to the language in the bill and offering "adjustments and amendments" to address their concerns. 

SB 1172 allows former patients who have received the therapy to file a cause of action against a psychotherapist.

"We don't support anything that brings this wider birth of legal action against psychologists," said Jo Linder-Crow, executive director of the California Psychological Association, at left. In the letter, Lieu said that Senator Lieu is not "properly addressing" her organization's concerns.  

[The letter states that] the groups don't want to ban the therapy for minors. They see the issue as a choice minors should be able to make for themselves.

They also said the bill's definition of sexual orientation change efforts is too vague. The authors argued that the language will have numerous interpretations and "may limit legitimate therapy for individuals that want to explore sexual orientation," Linder-Crow said.

Previously reported:

30,000 kids dumped from early ed w/May revise cuts

May 22, 2012: If the $517 million in cuts to early education -- proposed in Governor Brown's "May revise" to the California 2012-13 budget -- are enacted by the Legislature, approximately 30,000 children living in California's lowest-income families will no longer have access to early education programs. (In the past four years, early ed has taken a 42% hit -- nearly $1 billion.)

According to Giuliana Halasz, above, CEO of the Professional Association for Childhood Education Alternative Payment Program (PACEAPP):

 "These cuts will also drive many small [early education] centers out of business, resulting in more than just a business closing: [these changes remove] a child care infrastructure that will be difficult and costly to replace...Early childhood education adds 200,000 jobs and $11 billion to California's economy. This proposal is a job killer for the clients we serve. Women are the losers here. They are a majority of the clients, small business owners and teachers. Governor Brown's drastic budget cuts are a direct attack on our children and their future..."

Also included in the May revise is the Governor's proposal to move administration of subsidized child care from the Dept. of Education to the Dept. of Social Services, essentially gutting the early education component of the program and reducing it to a babysitting service. [Full disclosure: California's Children is sponsored by Human Services Management Corporation, a San Francisco-based company that administers the PACE Alternative Payment Program. The editor of this site, Wendy Lestina, has been an advocate for early education in low-income neighborhoods in California for nearly 50 years.]

SFUSD: healthy food may have improved behavior by 50%

IMay 17, 2012: Susan Frey, a program associate at EdSource, has released an "occasional paper," outlining the efforts of the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) to provide kids with healthier food choices.

Interviewed for the paper,"San Francisco’s Long Campaign to Provide Healthier School Meals Yields Results," was Dana Woldrow, healthy school food advocate and volunteer chair of SFUSD's Student Nutrition and Physical Activity Committee (SNPAC). Woldrow describes the district's transformation from a two-tiered system--regular lunch and a la carte (potato chips, sodas and snack cakes, for those who can pay)--to the one today that has salad bars, has eliminated all trans fats (fried food), and offers a daily vegetarian entree in all district schools.

Patricia Gray, above, SFUSD assistant superintendent, thinks that eliminating the unhealthiest items and providing fresh fruit snacks contributed toward a reduction in referrals for discipline to her office by about half, particularly for “bad behavior after lunch.”

But it does so at a cost. In these tough budgetary times, the food service runs a deficit every year—more than $3 million last year. District children have healthy meals each day because the school board has decided to make it a priority, closing the deficit with monies from the district’s unrestricted general fund, which was more than $300 million in 2010–11.

The system is inherently flawed, Woldow points out, because the federal reimbursement for lunches is the same for all 48 contiguous states despite the differences in cost of living.

Eligibility for the free and reduced-price meals program...does not take into account the higher cost of living in California...Unlike many districts, San Francisco also does not charge students the 40 cents for reduced-price meals either.

In 2009, Ed Wilkins, SFUSD's director of Student Nutrition Services, decided to eliminate the a la carte menu and create a card system that all students could use...removing the [potential] stigma [of] ...participating in the ...subsidized program. The card program was implemented district-wide in 2010–11. Now the only items left on the a la carte menu are bottled water, 100% fruit juice, and low-fat, lower-sugar cookies.

The district [still] needs more federal, state, or local funds to make the costs of distributing food and buying it from local vendors sustainable, Wilkins said...adding that policymakers...need to understand that healthy food does not come cheaply.

EdSource, founded in 1977, is an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization whose mission is to clarify complex education issues and to promote thoughtful policy decisions about public school improvement. Louis Freedberg, founding director of California Watch, is executive director.

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle. 

What works: CA's ban on school-based junk food

May 11, 2012: California high school students are consuming 160 fewer calories during the school day than students in other states -- thanks to state laws restricting junk food consumption on school campuses.

This data is included in the results of a study by researchers at the University of Illinois (UI). Anahad O'Connor reported on the findings for the New York Times. 

California has banned the sale of soda and sugary sports drinks in elementary schools and enforced nutrition standards on competitive foods (those sold in vending machines and snack bars) on school campuses since 2007; a bill AB 1746 (Williams, D-Santa Barbara), hopes to extend the ban to high schools.

Lead author of the study, Daniel Taber, Ph.D., at left, of Health Policy Center,  UI Institute of Health Research and Policy, used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Youth Physical Activity and Nutrition Study: 680 students from California and 14 other states without state laws restricting junk food consumption on school campuses reported their food intake over a 24-hour period...

California's students had the lowest daily intake of calories, fat and, especially, added sugars... students got a lower proportion of their daily calories from school foods than students in other states: about 21.5% compared with 28.4% among students elsewhere.

While 100 calories here or there may not sound like much, many researchers say that most children and adolescents could avoid significant long-term weight gain by cutting out just 100 to 200 extra calories a day.....

...California’s students... were still eating junk food — just slightly less of it than their peers in other states. And their vitamin and mineral intake was similar to that of students in other parts of the country.

The study was financed by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and published in the May edition of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.

CDC reports: Teens having sex later; 59% use "highly effective" birth control

May 7, 2012: Fewer teens are sexually active and those teens who are having sex are more likely to be using highly effective contraceptive methods, announced the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released last Thursday on teen sexual activity and contraception use.

The findings, reported on by Eryn Brown for the LA Times, may explain the drop in teen birth rate in the US to record lows (29.0 births for every 1,000 women ages 15-19). Researchers analyzed nationally representative data on females aged 15–19 years from the CDC's National Survey of Family Growth surveys in 1995, 2002 and 2006-2010.

Among the key findings:

From 2006 to 2010, 57% of females 15 to 19 had never had sex, up from 49% in 1995, with no significant difference among racial and ethnic groups. 

The increase was greatest for African-Americans (34% increase) and Hispanics (29% increase); in increase among whites was 15%.

During 2006–2010, 73% of females aged 15–17 years had never had sex, compared with 36.5% of females aged 18–19 years.

The girls who reported having sex during the 2006-2010 survey were 26% more likely to have used a “highly effective” method of birth control (59% in total), such as an IUD or the pill, than sexually active teenagers in 1995; 16.% depended on moderately effective methods, 6.% used less-effective methods (such as rhythm method or withdrawal) and 18% used no contraception at all. 

White teens were more likely to use highly effective birth control (66%) than African-American (47%) and Hispanic teens(53%). 

Written for California's Children by Elizabeth J Carlyle.