Okay, I'd like to call to order this meeting of the first five Sacramento Commission for Monday, August 4th, 2025.

Madam Clerk, will you please call the role and establish a quorum?

Yes, sir.

Chair Sarna.

Here.

Commissioner Wesley here.

Commissioner Fernandez Garcia, not here today.

Commissioner Gordon.

Here.

Commissioner Cassiria, not here today.

Commissioner Katari here.

Commissioner Moak.

Here.

Commissioner Kennedy, not here today.

Commissioner Hassett here.

Commissioner Williams.

Here.

Commissioner Evans, not here today.

Commissioner Guerra.

Here.

Commissioner Boston.

Here.

And Commissioner Kravitz Sports.

Here.

Thank you.

We have Quorum.

Very good.

If you could please read our statement.

This meeting of the first five Sacramento Commission is live and recorded with closed captioning.

It is cable cast on Metro Cable Channel 14, the local government affairs channel on the Comcast and the Rick TVU versus Cable Systems.

It is also live stream at Metro14 Live that's SAC County.gov.

Today's meeting place Friday, August 8th at 2 p.m.

on Metro Cable Channel 14.

Once posted, the recording of this meeting can be viewed on demand at YouTube.com/slash Metro Cable 14.

Great.

Thank you.

If you'd please rise and join newly minted Commissioner Eric Guerra in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Salute Pledge.

I'll allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God.

All right.

Again, I'd like to welcome everyone to uh this afternoon's uh monthly first five Sacramento Commission meeting.

I see some folks entering the back of chambers now, and looks like they're getting ready to sign up to speak.

And again, as a friendly reminder, uh we certainly encourage you to address the commission on any item that is on our published agenda or any item that is not on our agenda.

Uh we ask that you please uh respectfully keep your comments to no more than three minutes.

That way, uh anyone that wishes to address the commission has the opportunity to do so.

We have a full agenda today, and um I think before we get started, as I just alluded to, I want to welcome uh Sacramento City Council member representing the 6th district, uh Mr.

Eric Guerra, who is our newest uh member of the commission.

It's good to see you up here, Eric.

He's also my compa, so uh and he he has two wonderful uh young sons that I'm sure he would love to proudly elaborate on.

Um, but uh he comes to this commission, I think, with a very um respectable track record, especially in the space of uh uh early childhood uh education and development, and he comes from that place of being a practicing, a very practicing parent.

So uh councilmember, I don't know if you'd like to make any uh introductory comments, but the floor is yours.

Well, thank you very much, Chair, and it's actually just great to see so many wonderful faces here.

People we've worked with together hand in hand for so many uh years.

Uh and yes, I I'm very excited uh and very gracious to be here and as you mentioned.

And not only uh have uh had the opportunity to work in the first five sector in uh on early childhood education, but uh more uh as a parent right now with one that is uh just came out of the first five era and the one that's still in it.

Uh we know very well how much uh that those formative years uh can shape and make the future for so many and uh unfortunately so many parents and so many young kids don't have all the resources they need at that time.

So the work that we do here is uh is critical, and so thank you, Mr.

Chair, for that opportunity.

Yeah, very good.

Welcome.

Uh I believe we have another uh new member to uh the commission, looking to my right now.

Uh Shelby Boston uh brings over 25 years of social service uh services experience to the commission.

She assumed the director of DC FAS in January of 2025, and then prior to that, she served as the director over the Department of Employment and Social Services in Butte County for the past eight years.

She also served as the chair of the first five commission in Butte County for three years and vice chair for five years.

She has a passion for child abuse prevention work and is excited to bring her experience and knowledge to this commission.

Shelby is most proud of her family and their commitment to being public servants.

Her husband served 34 years in the fire service, retiring in November from Cal Fire.

We certainly appreciate his service in that regard.

It's very important, especially uh as we're reminded this time of year.

Shelby is also a mom to two boys, Zach, age 24 and Colby, age 19.

Her eldest is an officer in the U.S.

Army, and her youngest son is currently in ROTC at SAC State.

Go Hornets, standers up.

And we'll be serving as an officer in the U.S.

Army upon his graduation from SAC State.

So Shelby, welcome.

And the floor is yours if you'd like to make any introductory comments.

Thank you.

And I'm really excited to be a part of the commission and bring all my experience and be a support to the good work that's done here in Sacramento.

So thank you.

Great.

I've had the opportunity to work with Shelby now for a few months, and it has been uh seamless in terms of not skipping a beat when it comes to important social service uh policy implementation and resource allocation responsibilities that the Board of Supervisors has working closely with our executive team and Shelby's uh proven already to be just a wonderful addition in that regard.

So welcome.

All right.

With that, uh I think we will get on to our agenda, Madam Clerk.

Our first item.

Item number one approval of June 2nd, 2025 draft action summary.

Okay.

First of all, I will ask the clerk, do we have anyone's time to speak on this matter?

No, sir, we do not.

Okay, very good.

Uh does any member of the commission wish to make comment or pull this item for separate vote?

Hearing none, I would entertain a motion.

So moved.

It's been moved.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

Roll call vote, please.

Chair Cerna.

Aye.

Commissioner Wesley, aye.

Commissioner Williams.

Aye.

Commissioner Gordon.

Aye.

Commissioner Guerra.

Aye.

Commissioner Guattari.

Aye.

And Commissioner Moak.

Aye.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Very good.

Thank you.

All right, we're on to separate matters.

Uh this next item is the public's uh opportunity to address the commission on any item that is not on our agenda.

Uh, we certainly again welcome uh your testimony.

Um those that would wish to address us off agenda, please realize that state law for bids us to go into great detail on your subjects.

Uh as it would violate the Brown Act, but uh, we certainly want to hear from you.

Um, so madam clerk, do we have anyone sign up on off agenda?

No, sir.

All right, very good.

Then we are on to uh the next item, which is the executive director's report.

Good afternoon, commissioners.

Pleasure to see you all.

I have a couple of things to highlight from my uh director's report.

I'll start with our um equity in action committee update.

Uh, this is kind of the most fun I've had at work in a while, actually, and the most learning that I've been doing at work in a while.

Um, our equity, equity and action committee as a reminder, that is how we're putting out uh over four million dollars to the community in uh participatory grant making process.

So for the first time ever, allowing the community to tell us um to inform us on the process uh and the awards to be made.

So very exciting stuff.

We have a two members of our 15-member committee joined us in the audience.

Um, so I'll ask Carol Belisi and Alberto Marcado to stand, please.

Thank you.

Um, they are energetic, um, they they bring all kinds of amazing information and um and our thought partners in how to do this work.

So um just wanted to acknowledge them.

Others might be popping in to future commission meetings as their schedule permits just to see how we operate here.

Um, they each represent one of our priority zip codes as a reminder.

We have 11 communities that we will be focusing the these funds on toward advancing racial equity and um building stronger families so uh I'll move on and talk a little bit about our parent partnership summit.

Uh we had parent leaders, more than 70 parent leaders gathered um in June in Natomas to celebrate a year worth of work and um and start to plan for what they want to do next.

We had um it was opened by Chair Cerna, and then we had a couple of commissioners sit on a panel, Commissioner Wesley and Commissioner Gera, both were panel members.

Um it was a pretty you know we're gonna have to learn how to roll our R's now.

Guerra, okay, I will work on that.

All right.

Um I will do my best.

Um so yes, it was a great, it was a great day.

It was I think like six hours.

We had kids were there.

There was a magician that showed up to entertain the children while the parents were doing the good work in the other room.

It was really fantastic.

Um other updates that I'll highlight is uh something that you'll all be getting an invitation to very soon, which is our Potter the Otter Museum exhibit.

So Potter the Otter was created by First Five Santa Clara about a decade ago.

It's a series of books, and then they partnered with the San Jose Children's Museum to create a traveling exhibit where Potter will come out to uh different counties um at their children's museums.

We have a first five partnership with them.

We're gonna be hosting free days for kids zero to five.

Um we're gonna be putting our community resources like help me grow and the family resource center from Rancho Cordova area will be out there on site.

We have a kickoff happening on um August 19th, and so that's what you will be invited to.

We have both Chair Cerna and Commissioner Guerra, thank you.

Um we'll be uh giving some opening remarks as we do a ribbon cutting that day.

If kids will be there playing, you'll get to walk through the exhibit.

We'll have snacks, breakfasty snacks.

So please do come.

It'll be at nine o'clock in the morning, but we will send out a calendar invite for you.

Other news, just something to um, it's a bit of a tease, I know.

Uh, Sacramento International Airport Child Care Center.

So this is something that first five is exploring with our airports department here at the county.

We're currently working on an MOU, which we will bring to you at the next meeting to um be uh thought partners to set the table and convene other child care partners from the area and to uh put together uh child care feasibility study to see what it would take to get child care center at the airport for not only um airport employees but like the contractors who do some of the more the other services at the airport as well.

It's very exciting.

We have already started pitching it to our legislators.

We'll need um a one to two million dollar initial investment for a build out of a space um that's already sitting there ready to go, and then um they'll use uh sliding scale and a mixed portfolio for who uh who pays what for spaces, so they have an idea already in mind, and they'll also be um part of the plan is to charge a tiny fee to the contractors of the airport so that they would um be able to sustain it long term.

So we've put in some thought, and uh this contract will help us dedicate some more staff time to really get down to it and uh hopefully be bringing it.

If if we pull it off, we will be, I think, the fourth airport, the third or the fourth airport in our country that has a child care center located on site.

So definitely more to come starting next uh next commission meeting.

I'm sorry, Julie.

Did you mention whether or not there's any ceremonial ribbon cutting or anything for for this?

I'm a politician, we gotta have to you have to give us at least a year to get this thing done.

Okay.

Sorry.

Um, but I I really am fingers crossed on this.

I we have uh real wonderful leadership at in our county airports.

We do, and yeah, I can't say enough good things about uh our airport system and the leadership and uh the executive roles there, and this is uh a very welcome addition.

This would be amazing.

So I will keep you posted.

I have some information about the state budget and the federal budget, including a handout from the first five association.

I won't take a lot of your time, but what I'll say is uh with our state budget uh approved um in June, and then the federal uh budget bill passed.

Um we do, I mean, we anticipate various things to be kicking in over the next two years that would really impact services for children and families as the as they as they start to take effect.

Um so we're not 100% sure on what that's gonna look like, but I just wanted to let you all know like what we're doing right now around that is talking to our partners about about what local impacts would look like.

Um we're collaborating with our consultant health management associates um to look at broader Sacramento and California impacts of policies coming down from the federal administration.

Uh we're exploring legislative opportunities with our first five association, and we're participating in first five associations, California Federal Advocacy Work Group, and this is a fairly large work group of advocates from across the state who are meeting now monthly um to develop a plan, a strategic plan, if you will, for how to address these potential impacts and to sort of speak with a unified voice around early childhood um to our state and federal representatives.

So I will also keep you posted on that.

And that concludes my report.

Great, thank you, Julie.

Uh, any questions for our executive director?

Okay, seeing none.

Madam Clerk, do we have anyone sign up to speak on the executive director's report?

No, sir.

All right, very good.

Thanks again, Julie.

And we are now on to uh item four, which is our advisory committee update.

Great.

So I believe we have our chair of the advisory committee to give a uh update, and then we do have four appointments to be made.

Very good, thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Surnright.

Commissioners, my name is Junior Goris, and I'm the chair of the first five advisory committee.

The advisory committee met on June 13th, and committee members received a presentation on the first five budget and ten year financial plan.

We reviewed the 25-26 budget highlights revenues and expenditures.

Members also received updates from other commit other committees such as SOS financial and evaluation.

And after the meeting, the 2027 strategic planning ad hoc committee met and reviewed the recommendations from the parent focus groups.

The ad hoc committees included members of the advisory committee and parents from our parent mentoring and advocacy groups run by Leafa tomorrow.

Our next meeting is scheduled for August 22nd, and that concludes the advisory committee report.

Great.

Thank you, Junior.

Thank you.

Appreciate it.

Uh, any questions for Gina?

I don't see any, okay.

Um, okay, thank you.

Yeah, you're good.

Uh all right, so um then we have uh the appointments you mentioned, Julie.

Yeah, really excited.

Um some folks are moving to different seats, but we have two new seats being filled um that had been open.

Uh Mael, who was a previous first five employee back in the day, is now a grandparent and returning in that seat.

Um, we have a new member interested in joining uh Bukola Badam.

I'm gonna make Badamasso is uh looking for the parks and rec seat.

Heidi Kaiser is moving to the parent seat and Keisha Harris to mental health advisory board seat.

Very good.

Okay.

Uh so um we uh just to be uh certain madam clerk, we don't have anyone sign up to speak on the appointments.

Do we do we no sir?

Okay, then at this point I would entertain a motion on the appointments.

I'll make a motion to approve all appointments.

Okay, it's been moved.

Is there a second second?

It's been moved and seconded.

We'll call vote, please.

Commissioner Wesley, aye.

Commissioner Williams, aye.

Commissioner Gordon.

Aye.

Commissioner Guerra.

Aye.

Commissioner Guitari, aye.

And Commissioner Moak.

Aye.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Very good.

Thank you.

And thank you to all of our appointments wherever you might be for your continued continued uh service and interest in uh the mission of first five.

So with that, uh, we will then now move on to item five, which is our evaluation committee update.

Who's doing that?

It was gonna be Dr.

K, but she's out, so I think Carmen is is jumping in to cover that one.

Very good.

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

I'm Carmen Garcia Gomez, and I oversee the evaluation committee.

Um, the evaluation committee met on July 21st.

Um, at that meeting, staff shared a plan to revamp the commission's annual report, which you will receive in the winter about January February time frame.

The updated format will be accessible to a broader audience.

Um currently the annual reports about 80 so pages long, and so we are going to shorten that report.

It's gonna be about probably 15 to 20 pages max.

It will include a data book in addition to it.

So for those of you that want to look at the RBAs more closely and other charts and tables and data, that will be a part of it, but it won't be um along with the with the annual report.

So we'll be able to share the annual report on other social media formats and and whatnot so that a broader audience can look at that.

The committee also received an updated trend report, which the commission will receive in October.

Um staff presented a proposal for a special study on the parenting leadership training institute program, PLTI.

Um the committee provided input and approved the proposal.

The commission will receive a summary next spring.

The next meeting of the evaluation committee will be on September 15th, 2025.

That concludes my report.

Very good, thank you.

Um any questions for Corman.

Okay, don't see any.

Um there's no vote on this.

Uh, Madam Clerk, do we have anyone sign up to speak on evaluation?

No, sir.

All right, very good.

Then we will move on to our finance financial planning committee update.

All right, the financial planning committee met on July 24th and established a quorum.

Staff presented a comprehensive update on the fiscal year 2025-26 revised recommended budget.

While there were no changes to program allocations, updated information was shared regarding our fund balance calculations and their impact on the tenure financial plan.

A motion was made to accept the updated changes, and the committee approved the fiscal year 25-26 revised recommended budget and tenure financial plan, and this is item eight on today's agenda.

The committee reviewed the commission's financial statements for fiscal year ending June 30, 2025, and the committee was satisfied with the financials as presented and identified no issues of concern.

This concludes my report.

Thank you, Vice Chair Hassett.

I appreciate that.

Any questions from Commissioners?

Ma'am Clerk, do we never sign up to speak?

We do not.

All right, very good.

Thanks again.

We're on to item seven, which is our systems optimization sustainability committee update.

All right, okay.

We met um June 18th, and we had two updates.

The first update was related to the state, federal, and the advocacy activities.

Um, and at that time we did not have a budget that was um approved.

Um we also received an update from the equity and action committee, and we were excited to hear about how that committee was starting to meet and get um grounded in the work around the ready um participatory grant making process.

And then lastly, we got to um receive some insights around the 2024 strategic plan, specifically around the system's improvement priorities and investments.

And we are meeting this month on August 20th, and that concludes our report.

Very good, thank you.

Any questions from board members or commission members?

Seeing none, Mount Clerk, do we have anyone sign up to speak?

No, sir.

All right, very good.

We're on to item eight.

Uh, this is the approval of the fiscal year 2025-26 revised recommended budget and tenure financial plan.

Good afternoon.

I'm Kristen Scheiber, Chief of Administration for the First Five Sacramento Commission.

Today I'll be walking you through the updates to the recommended budget for fiscal year 25-26 as well as our 10-year financial plan.

To start, I want to note that there are no line item changes or budget adjustments to report.

And if you take a look at attachment one, which is was up on the screen.

Um it's also in your packet.

Um attachment one is the budget highlights document.

You'll see that the expenditure and revenue figures remain the same as what was presented to the commission back on April 7th.

What has changed are the carry forward fund balance and the reserve release amounts for fiscal year 24-25 revenues came in 4.8% below projections, largely due to lower than expected proposition 10 disbursements.

The good news is the shortfall was offset by expenditure savings and higher than anticipated interest income.

As a result, the estimated carry forward fund balance is now 2,683,284, and that's an increase of approximately 737,000 dollars over what was originally budgeted for fiscal year 25-26.

The higher carry forward fund balance allows us to reduce the amount we need to draw down from our reserves.

The updated reserve release is now $2,284,019.

Um, this is the additional amount required to meet our budgeted expenditures above projected revenue, in other words, what we need to balance the budget.

Um, so next is um the 10-year financial plan attachment two in your packet.

Um, prop 10 revenue projections have been updated to reflect the state's April forecast, which aligns with what was reported last year in September.

Um, thanks to the higher-than-expected carry-forward fund balance and reduced reserve release.

Um, we've been able to lower the projected reduction in the 2027 strategic plan from 22.4% to an even 20 percent, so a 2.4 percent improvement.

We're hopeful this trend will continue as we realize more carry-forward fund balance in the next budget years.

Um, this concludes my report on the fiscal year 25-26 revised recommended budget and the tenure financial plan.

I'd be happy to take any questions.

All right, very good.

Any questions for staff?

All right, don't see any.

Madam Clerk, do we have anyone sign up to speak on this item?

No, sir.

Okay, we do need to um consider for approval the fiscal year 25-26 revised recommended budget and tenure financial plan.

So is there a motion?

I move, okay.

It's been moved and seconded, local vote, please.

Chair Cerna, aye.

Commissioner Wesley.

Aye.

Commissioner Williams, aye.

Commissioner Gordon, aye.

Commissioner Guerrero.

Aye.

Commissioner Katari, aye, and Commissioner Moak.

Aye.

Thank you.

Motion passes.

Very good.

Thank you very much.

All right, uh, we are on to item nine.

Uh, this is uh presentation on the 2024 to 2027 implementation plan and strategy prioritization and funding allocation timeline for commissioners.

That is a mouthful.

It is.

Um, happy today to talk to you, take you through the next step of our strategic planning process, which really is our implementation planning process, because as a reminder, we did extend the strategic plan to 10 years.

So now we're just talking about implementation planning.

And even though it feels like we are we just started the current one, we're actually just began our second year of our strategic plan.

So we're we're ready to talk about next one already.

Um the presentation that we'll take you through today is gonna outline some of the decisions that you'll be making and the process that staff have been thinking through in order to bring you the information that you need to make those decisions, and uh at the end of the presentation today, we have some questions to ask you, and uh hope to engage in a brief discussion before we move on to our last item.

So I will let Lindsay take this one.

Oh, there it is.

Um, so the just to orient you, because this is a confusing slide, it's got a lot of layers there.

So let me draw your attention to the bottom layer where it says agenda, and these are the uh agenda items that will come before the commission.

Um, and we have one little error there, and that first arrow should be going toward the meeting today where it says we are here.

It got away from us.

Um, so today we're sharing funding allocation decision criteria, and then uh at your October meeting, we'll be sharing the community trend report, which talks about how families and children in Sacramento County are doing in general.

Um, and we'll report out on our phase one community research, so what we're hearing from community about what they um where their strengths and needs are.

Uh, at your meeting in December, we'll report out on phase two of the community research, which is um when we take strategies back to the community based on what we heard from them and how they rank those strategies.

Um, and we'll offer staff's recommendations on strategy prioritization.

So, how to prioritize the strategies that have come forward, um, and then finally at the February meeting, we'll offer staff recommendations on funding allocations.

Um, and then above that, in the dark blue line, you see when the um the ad hoc community advisory board is meeting that's um helping guide the process for us, like a filter and accountability partners between us and and community, um, and your commission meetings are the line above that, and then the work that's being done, the timeline for that.

So, as you can see right now, we're in the midst of staff strategy development.

And just as a level set reminder, you just heard it, and now you can see it this way too, that we're facing uh 20% reduction in funds in the next implementation plan.

Okay, and we it's no surprise, we've never had enough funding to uh to fund everything that we wanted to over the years.

Um we've always made trade-offs, as you know, and now as our need increases and our funding is decreasing, we have even more sort of trade-offs and things to think about.

Um, so we aren't asking you these questions right now.

We just want you to sort of have them in the back of your mind because this is how we're gonna end our 10-slide presentation, circling back to these questions after we kind of fill you in on what we're thinking of doing and getting your feedback on it.

At the end, we want to make sure that uh you feel like you have all the information that you need to make these decisions with that 20% reduction coming.

Okay, so um as part of our last strategic plan, the 10-year plan, uh, the commission approved these foundational principles, which really just to highlight again, we're going narrow and deep.

We want to leverage as much funding as possible to sustain.

We are all about prevention, early intervention, community collaboration.

We make decision data informed decisions, looking at our community's strengths and the priority areas where we need to focus most to reduce disparities.

So those are in a nutshell our foundational principles.

Um, and as staff really were brainstorming and looking at how to make decisions for making reductions on strategies, we thought we would use these foundational principles figure out how to operationalize these to make these help us create those recommendations that will come to you later.

Julie, if I can uh just uh interject here for a sec.

This is um just kind of a reminder for uh the public, but also for um uh the council member.

Uh I suspect that uh commissioner uh Boston probably is well aware since she has um got a lot of a lot of history with uh Butte County first five, but um it is principally because of the nature, the uniqueness of our budget uh that we have a structural um uh decline in revenue, uh, and it's for good reasons, because fewer people are um smoking.

Uh we always like to say, of course, you know, go ahead and buy the cigarettes, just don't smoke them, right?

So uh so therefore, in fact, during my tenure um on this commission, uh, we've talked about cliffs, we've talked about soft cliffs, we've talked about you know, how to avoid that uh when it comes to strategic planning and implementation of our strategic plans.

Uh, but it's important as just a reminder for everyone that um unlike uh cities and counties that some of us uh serve on uh they're uh elected decision-making boards um uh or bodies that we don't um we don't have the luxury of assuming that sales tax might pick up at some future year or property tax might uh be as sustainable as it might seem because we just have a very, very different revenue stream here that uh again uh forces us uh quite frankly to be creative, right?

And that's why you see operative verbs like leverage in here and narrow and deep, and so that's uh I think uh important to stress as we begin to talk in detail about implementation.

Great context.

Thanks, Chair Cerna.

Um, and as staff looked at these five foundational principles, we found that perhaps one was missing, something that we didn't take into consideration, just given the environment that we're working in, and so one thing that we're suggesting um is the potential addition of a foundational principle that prioritizes funds that support First Five Sacramento to carry out the mission and the vision that you all have created.

Um, and several things uh I just mentioned we just started our second year of our strategic plan, and several things have already like come to the surface that are we're doing business very differently than we were before.

Um, and so we are sort of grappling with how we evolve as a commission to be able to do those things.

So we've talked about our our revenue, which is continuing to decline, and as you all know, we made that pivot in the last strategic plan to also focus more funding on systems improvement.

So we were before that time primarily a grant-making entity, writing checks, giving money for direct services.

In this last strategic plan, we said let's hold back a tiny bit, like five percent of the money, whatever, it's very small amount, but let's hold this so that we can start doing some systems work to change things up here as our money decreases, because again, we will never have enough money to do all the work we want to do.

So, systems work takes a different, it's a different level of work, it's a different kind of work than being um contract monitor and and an RFP generator.

Um then we started building parent power that is literally moved us out of our offices when we are out in community all the time now at community events at parent leadership forums.

Um our travel budget is kind of funny because like during the COVID years, we never went anywhere now.

Now we have mileage claims again.

What mileage claims, right?

Like we're just so much more out in community now.

And then creating this decision making process with the community, like equity in action.

It's just been a total game changer, where we're learning new things every every day.

We're challenging assumptions, and again, just changing the way we do business.

So all of those things require infrastructure in a different way than it did before.

So we're not saying we need to grow, we're just saying that we should look at if if these are the things that we value and these are the strategies that will be coming our way in the new implementation plan period.

I think it's just going to be really critical to say we have to support the infrastructure that allows us to do it in a successful and in a meaningful way.

Yeah.

So that is that, and then Lindsay's gonna jump back in.

So we just wanted to walk you through the process that staff is thinking of using.

So taking these foundational principles and using them to as the prioritization criteria.

Um, so this, along with trend data and that community input that we talked about, um, we'll use all of that to bring a list of priorities to the commission to vote on in December.

Um, and prior to that, we'll share in the October meeting the community input and the trend data.

So you'll have that context as well.

Um so the community may come back to us with a list of a hundred different strategies that they'd like to see implemented, right?

This is a possibility.

And staff are gonna need a method to use to prioritize those strategies and to make a recommendation to the commission for your consideration in December.

So the method that we're proposing is to operationalize our foundational principles, to use these things as the lens through which we'll analyze the strategies.

So, for example, you can see we've listed the principles on the left hand side and the considerations, how we could use those to prioritize on the right hand side.

So, for instance, make narrow and deep investments to achieve the greatest impact.

We could uh look at the strategies that would result in systems level impact and strategies that address root causes of the challenges that families face, right?

It would be one of the lenses through which we would put things, and not that those would be the only things that we would fund, but we'd be creating a balance with these foundational principles in mind, and then that goes on to the other three foundational principles.

So looking at community strengths and needs, looking at strategies that build community assets, again, looking at root causes and racial disparities and health and well-being.

Um, just all of these considerations will come into play, and then our data sources, um, would be how things are working right now, um, the funding landscape assessment.

What else is out there?

Who can we partner with?

Um, where could we hand something off, or where could we braid a funding stream?

Root cause analysis.

It goes back to that interest in primary prevention, right?

Are we funding things that are addressing um what the real causal elements are?

Um, primary research, that's the community engagement focus groups and the surveys, and just to backtrack on that, we we held six focus groups in the first round with 53 people.

Um we had two groups that were just generally caregivers of zero to five year olds.

We had one group that was just fathers.

It's a group we don't hear from a whole lot.

We had one group that was an Afghan community group.

Um one group of mothers who were experiencing homelessness, and one group that was held in Spanish.

So just to try to capture sort of the broad uh the broad community and some pieces of it that we don't often hear from to make sure that those voices were.

Can I interrupt here?

Yeah.

So the those specific groups that you just mentioned, the fathers, the um the Afghan uh families, uh were those um kind of self-selected.

They're they they just presented themselves as kind of uh representative of the those unique population sets because of just their general interest in this, or did we go out and say, Well, we'd like to have Spanish speaking, we'd like to have Afghan uh folks.

It was the latter, it was in combination with that ad hoc community advisory board um helped us figure out which groups we would like to to prioritize to hear from.

Okay.

And then in terms of uh recruitment, um it depended on how the group came about.

So one of our advisory committee members was already working with a group of women who were experiencing homelessness, so she used them as a focus group.

One of our um advisory committee members is a member of the Afghan community and he recruited families who would like to participate.

In terms of how we get from here to December, are there going to be other opportunities for other um represented populations to um provide their input?

Yeah, great question.

So we're going to do another set of focus groups as well as a survey, which will be um much more broad.

So um I'd like to suggest, and others might want to chime in here, but I would like to suggest that one of the emerging groups that I think we need to be cognizant of in terms of our strategic plan and how it is implemented and how we make sure we don't miss um specific populations is um those immigrant populations that are unfortunately being targeted by the federal administration and uh especially as it relates to family reunification and I know we you know we always have to keep in mind put on the blinders of zero to five, and so I'm not asking you to to ignore that, but I think there's enough uh overlap between that uh general mission based on the population set that we're charged to focus on and the fact that we're seeing um so much unfortunate again, targeting is the only word that comes to mind uh of that particular part of our community.

One way to I think to um make it easy on staff to find out who and how best to do that, it would be to reach out to the uh fuel network.

Um that's kind of uh that could be considered kind of a one stop place to find out uh and explore where that intersection between first five's mission and their mission, um, and all the groups that are kind of underneath that umbrella um are that we might think about um specifically identifying in addition to all the other um groups that have already started participating, but it's timely and uh I think it's necessary.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember.

Uh thank you, uh Chair.

I just wanted to concur in that support, and then also not to forget that when um we did the most recent study on the workforce, those who were uh caretakers and in the workforce for zero to five are predominantly also that sector that's being targeted as well.

So when we're talking about not only the families, but the entire workforce is it's uh it's one of those that we need to support.

So I concur with that and uh and glad to help coordinate with the fuel network.

We do have standing meetings now that we're we're meeting on this issue.

Okay, thank you.

Commissioner Moop.

Yeah, and I guess uh to that point, I what's what's interesting and you know fortunate, I guess, is that for a couple of decades we've been making investments into environment built environments, locations, family resource centers, that their doors have always been open to these populations, targeted populations and otherwise, and so to me, the opportunity to open the doors wider to make it to figure out crack the code on how those places can be made even more safe than they are today and have been.

Um, you know, I guess I just don't I wanna I don't want to throw whatever the baby in the bathwater saying is I don't want to give up what we've spent 20 years investing in when that is some of the infrastructure that we need in order to harbor and help these people that are being targeted.

Commissioner Wesley.

Yeah, I was just gonna say a combination of what you're already thinking is um where we strengthen existing partnerships, um, along with maybe possible new ones, which I think that's what you're getting at.

And I would just say at my agency where we serve about a hundred and um 60 families and child care providers.

What we've already started to see in Los Angeles is that home visiting, for example, um is needing to be done in some targeted zip codes based on what you just shared, Commissioner Cerna, that or Chair Cerna is that um some families are going in silence right now, they're hiding in the shadows, and so we're doing home visiting virtual, so that might be pivots, and then domestic violence is something we're seeing for some of our direct services like Head Start.

Um we're interested to see our kids are coming back in mid-August to see if the attendance goes down or not, but we're already seeing an LEUSD attendance is down.

Um so I think there's a strengthening and a pivoting and new partnerships, so it might just be a combination of what you're already thinking that you're sharing with us right now, as well as doubling down in some areas and shifting.

Um, and maybe it's what's so great about this is because it's a 10-year plan, you guys are so smart to be strategic so that we can make these kind of maneuvers.

Yes, um, so thank you.

That's all I wanted to share.

That's a great feedback because it isn't written how we're going to do it right now.

And and so who we talk to in community is really important, and and so appreciate all of this guidance for sure.

And first five, as you know, is to serve all children, like capital A L L all children in Sacramento.

So, and I just want to lift up that there's a uh difference between strategies and partners, right?

So a partner can deliver multiple strategies, and we can have a same partner and tweak some of the strategies as well, Commissioner Gordon.

Yes, I I also wouldn't exclude trying to work with our health systems, our four uh managed care plans here in Sacramento County.

We now have an obligation to collaborate with them through MOUs, but they also under Cal Aim, the the governor's strategy have an obligation to do a lot more on the prevention end with community agencies.

So I think that would be worth a worth a set of conversations as well.

Thank you.

Okay, all right.

So back to my questions.

How does that all how does it all sound?

Thank you for the feedback.

We've been taking notes, and we absolutely will incorporate more of that community voice, and you will get to see here all of that data as well.

Um, but so putting yourselves in your future shoes, so as we mentioned, uh February is when we'll come with a list of strategies that we're recommending, or sorry, um December, a list of strategies that we're recommending, February is that where the rubber hits the road and it's more about the allocation of dollars to strategies.

Um and so we're asking you to think like what does success look like uh for making those decisions, knowing we have a 20% reduction, and uh the support that you might need throughout the process.

We have uh the October meeting, December meeting, and then I think right now uh just in February.

I don't think we have a January meeting, but if we needed a January meeting, we could certainly uh schedule that in for next year.

Commissioner Kotori.

Yeah, thank you.

I just am appreciative of staff.

This is a great process you're going through, and I think the framework will really help us to make some good decisions going forward.

Um I just want to echo what everyone's saying up here, which is there's not been a time in my career when partnership hasn't been more important, and I Julie and the staff have been incredible at partnering with our uh health and human service departments, and the rest of our partners will continue to do that.

We have to come together at this time, and so I thank you for the work that you're doing on this.

And I I see that this process is gonna support us in decision making.

So I apologize.

Apologies, I have to leave early.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Okay, so that's that concludes that.

If you if you have thoughts along the way, please reach out.

Um you definitely all know how to find me.

Um, and so we'll continue to work and bring you uh more information in October.

Great, thank you.

Yes, Commissioner Wesley.

I actually just had one question.

Do we does anybody know if there's a sort of like a rubric or uh assist or some type of um, I don't want to call it a decision-making tool that looks like like whole child whole family, like if I enter into this door like FRCs, that by answering this door, I get most of my needs met.

I know we're thinking about like a universal intake form, like if I go to FRC that provides concrete services, this particular organization also can provide most of the concrete services, but they might have to refer me out to housing.

I'm just thinking about my days as a single mom and needing some of these services and was on the TANF program, but I was able to go to one place and get a lot of my needs met or what they couldn't, with where they couldn't fill in the gap, they were able to so we did we created SAC Family Connect exactly for that, so that families wouldn't have to go from here to here to here, basically like a no wrong door.

And so it's a dis it's a whole decision tree that we've trained our our not only our funded partners, you don't have to be a funded partner, but if you're a child and family serving agency, we've trained agencies, we have video trainings on our SAC Family Connect website, and it is to be able to say this is these are the things that this agency can do, and and then the agency knows where they're to refer a family to for the next thing because not one agency, as you say, can make can meet all the needs of every single family, and so there's a way to query the information for um are you a first-time parent?

It will direct you this way.

If it's your first baby, it might send you here.

If you're black African American, it's gonna send you here first.

If your child is older than six, it's gonna send you over there, but then once you get to that place, they will then assess you.

So we have ums with 34, 36 different agencies that have all agreed to use the the decision tree that's inside SAC Family Connect.

Okay, I wonder if I wonder if we use that when we come back to do that, looking at the strategies in December, if we use it as a guide or support to us.

I just I'm trying to look for to answer your question.

Like what more can what what more do you need to help make these decisions?

Yeah.

When we come back, like can we use something like a rubric or borrow something from that?

Or um, you know?

Gosh, I'm dating myself.

Like uh cliff notes.

Yes.

Cliff notes.

We can certainly do that.

There's a whole generation has no idea what that is.

No.

The guy's name was Cliff.

Yeah, right.

That's right.

His actual name was Cliff.

Um, I guess just one other thought, something that Commissioner Wesley may think of.

I just I also feel like, you know, not to overdramatize or put too much on this, but I do think this is a moment in time where we could probably reinvent ourselves a bit.

Correct.

And um, you know, as we continue to see things possible today, whether it was through COVID or just technology, other ways that whether it's businesses or even nonprofits are doing today that they weren't.

And I mean, we can have now functional Dr.

Ciro's not here, but functional physician visits on our iPads now.

Whereas like if you would if we would have said that six years ago in here, been like, what are you talking about?

You can't, that's not that's not possible.

So I just, you know, I don't know.

I almost think of movie the movie theater phenomenon that movie theaters were out going out a bit going going on.

There was nobody that was going to move, gonna go to movies anymore.

And then they reinvented themselves and figured out how to keep people coming, whether it was the I mean it was mostly booze, let's be real.

But like but food and just made the environment different and and made it easier for people, right?

So I guess I know this is a short time frame, and I don't know if the come a complete reinvention is possible, but I would just love us to look at not doing it the exact same way.

I mean, and you know, and I will find I've been on this commission for a long time, and and we have done that.

We we have we have just pivoted just enough to figure it out, and and I think this is a time I think when we see it this way, um, and how the future looks.

I I just feel like our our opportunity to do something that is totally different is upon us.

So, basically, what you're saying is uh snaps.

Wow, all right.

That is so 2019.

Everybody like, so basically what you're saying, if it's not broke, break it.

I mean, I like I like that book.

I don't know if I I don't know if I come I just think I think that, and maybe it's that we are looking at reserving a portion of our investment to truly shake it up and look differently around how just even your description about how a family comes in no wrong door and navigates their way through.

Are there then three other steps that a family might be likely to stay on the path to service, whatever that wherever that leads them?

I don't know.

I those are things for really smart people to help us think about.

But I guess what would success look like at the end of the day, some portion should be reserved for doing things a little bit different.

It's exactly what you all did in the in the last strategic plan where you said we don't know what we're gonna do with this racial equity money, but we know we want to put it here because we know we're not getting new partners to the table.

We know we get the same players over and over again, so let's reinvent it, let's figure it out.

The strategic plan we're in right now is like miles different than the one beforehand, and we have that opportunity, and now we have a precedent for doing things differently.

So I love that y'all aren't afraid to do things differently.

It's exciting.

Yep.

Good comments, great, thank you.

All right, um, your presentation is concluded.

Yes, sir.

Okay, any other questions for staff or comments from commissioners.

Okay.

Um, Madam Clerk, do we have anyone sign up to speak on the matter?

No, sir, we do not.

All right, very good.

This is informational.

Appreciate the time and energy you put into the presentation.

We are on to item number 10.

Um, this is another presentation, uh, evaluation of findings from efforts to reduce African-American child deaths, and I do have one speaker uh slip uh here.

So if there are others that wish to address the commission, I would encourage you to get your slips in and to the clerk that way and call you in the order that we receive them.

Fabulous.

And we have Linda Fong Samara is going to kick off this item.

She has been our lead on all things reducing African American child death for a decade now, I believe.

Great.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, commissioners.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide you with our fiscal year 2020.

I don't think your mic's on.

Sorry.

Okay.

Can you hear me?

Okay.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, commissioners.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide you with the fiscal year 2023 to 24 reduction of African American child deaths, or RAACD as we call it, annual report.

And so as Julie mentioned before we get started with our presenters, I just wanted to provide a brief introduction and kind of level set for those of you that may not have been here with us earlier on in the journey.

It is absolutely hard to believe it's already been a decade since we have officially started this work.

Time sure does fly.

Actually, it's been more than that.

More than a decade, yes.

Absolutely more than a decade, but it's been a decade since we've been funding some of this work.

For the commission, it's been a little bit more than a decade as well.

This has been, you know, um an outstanding countywide effort to really work on and address that continued disproportionality and African American child deaths.

And as you mentioned, Supervisor Cerna, those initial conversations began as early as 2011 as a group, as a Blue Riven Commission, we went out into the community and had community listening sessions and really began looking hard at that data and looking to the community for information on and input on what the data says and what strategies we might be able to work on in the community.

And so this longstanding effort I think really has been successful because of our investment in the collective impact framework.

And we really are in this community breaking down those silos and working together on a common agenda on common shared measurements, continually communicating with each other, trying to employ strategies that complement each other, and we have backbone support through the Sierra Health Foundation to really help keep this effort moving forward.

And we're fortunate here in Sacramento that we utilize a two-pronged complementary approach.

One is the first five uh Sacramento RAACD efforts, and then the other is the Black Child Legacy Campaign or BCLC.

So I have to apologize.

It is data and the community voice.

And as I mentioned earlier, we did those community listening sessions over a decade ago.

And what we heard resoundingly from the community is that they wanted to not only be directly involved but be a part of the solution and really lead the efforts.

And so we hope that as you look through the upcoming presentations, you can see how we have really intentionally tried to honor community voice and that expertise in this effort and really honor and value that in the work.

The other component is we know that disaggregated data, we're lucky to have a child death review team here in Sacramento County.

That disaggregated data has been key to this work as well.

Data is really important, and that can tell us part of the story, can tell us what's happening in the community, can tell us where we might be successful or need to make some shifts in the work and change course.

We need to continue the course of these two drivers in our work moving forward within that collective impact model.

In a recent meeting with partners that we brought together, we were talking about the data that you're about to see, and we all agreed that while we certainly have set goals that we have worked towards and continue to work towards, this is not a one-and-done effort.

Communities change, needs change, factors outside of our control, like COVID can happen, and the approaches may then need to change as a result.

And so we need to stay committed to this course.

We need to continue to plan, implement, reflect, adapt, evaluate, start that process all over again.

And of course, we're all here because we keep children and families at the center of our work.

And unfortunately, you know, racism continues to be a public health issue, and we can see how those disparities are magnified during times of crisis.

And so you will see that in some of the data today.

And as we continue to work together and see the progress of these efforts, it really underscores the importance of that targeted but universal approach.

While we frame this initiative as focused on African American children as it certainly should be, we are also needing to acknowledge that the changes that are and can happen in our programs and our services and the systems, they're not only going to have a positive impact on African-American families but children throughout Sacramento County.

So again, that targeted but universal approach is so important for all families in Sacramento County.

So with that, I'd like to introduce our presenters for today.

For today's item, we'll hear from Jadita Gomes of the CR Health Foundation representing the Black Child Legacy Campaign.

She will provide you with some updates on what's happening at the community incubator leads throughout Sacramento County, followed by a presentation from Alyssa Mullins of applied survey research, applied survey research, sorry, ASR, our evaluators, and she will provide some updates on the first five Sacramento funded programs as well as some of our countywide outcomes.

We have a lot of information to cover, so we'd ask that everyone please hold their questions till the end of the presentation, and we will answer them then.

We also have many partners in the room that can answer some questions as well.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So, Jadita, would you please come up?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay, there we go.

Half the battle is always figuring out the clicker.

So good afternoon, commissioners.

It's good to be here today and report on the incredible work that we do.

My name, as Linda mentioned, is Jadita Gomes, program officer for Black Child Legacy Campaign at the Center Sierra Health Foundation, and so we get to be the backbone agency, but intermediaries between you, first five staff and our incredible partners in the community.

So gratitude for your continued investment.

Definitely want to understore underscore continued to be able to have a county invest in such work for 10 years is incredible and is something worth commending and reflecting on.

So we appreciate that.

Such incredible, impactful but also life-altering work.

Unfortunately, if we don't do this work, we lose children.

We lose families are negatively impacted, and so we thank you for for that work.

I always have to bring our trusted partners in the room.

Some of them are here today, but we do not get to do the work without your investment, but also with the commit continued commitment and execution from the folks in the community, which, if I can be honest, they were doing this reduction of African American child work before we came together as a collective, and so they were spaces that were trusted.

They were individuals that the community knew.

But if we can call Miss Jackie, if we can call Mr.

Roberts, if we can get to Mutual Assistance Network, then some relief will come.

And so I always make it my point to lift them up and to bring them into the room because this work does not happen without trusted partners.

We all can try to do this work, but um the community doesn't engage with just anyone, right?

And so for them to have built the equity in the community and to continue to create spaces where folks trust themselves to return and be served, but also to uh refer other people to be served is incredible.

So we have uh folks from all the way in Foothill Farms, North Highlands, all the way to South Sack Christian Center.

And this slide just highlights the expertise that they each have, um, and we did this so that we can share just the strength in the model, right?

That everyone does not have to be an expert in everything, but because of our collective, we cover those bases, and so our families are served in I I've heard it mentioned before in a holistic way.

So the whole family is not only served for certain needs in isolation, but that they can receive everything they need so that they are stabilized.

So just want to um uplift that.

And so the work that we do is rooted in community, our partners, and I would dare to say the most important aspect of what we do, they're in the community, they see the families, they service the families, and so we we rehearse this over and over, right?

That the work that we do is community centered, um, it's community driven, but it's community serving.

And so if what we're doing is not actually translating to the community, we have to pivot.

We have to shift how we do what we do so that it can achieve what we're wanting to do.

Um, I'll go to the next slide.

The importance of this web of partners that we have developed has also created space for additional partners.

When we first started 10 years ago on the ground, but over 10 years in planning, we had our core um county and systems partners and first five.

But as we have developed the work, we've brought in other partners, and so we have community with wellness responsive program, understanding that we're serving whole families, we're serving whole beings, and so the mental health aspect and the wellness aspect is just as important as being able to access the benefits from Department of Human Assistance, right?

It's just as important as being being able to access the advocacy that comes through child protective services, and so our model has created uh room for a deepening and a widening of that uh partnership and that web that is serving the community and executing impactful work.

And so I just wanted to uplift, right?

We're now in most of the uh school districts.

We're providing uh advocacy work through black parallel school board, we're supporting with Harland uh child and family services.

We continue to bolster up this this bag of tools that our community is so uh in dire need of.

We often say um that because the black families are facing multidimensional barriers, our solutions have to be multidimensional, and so we cannot serve the community in silos and isolation.

We have to begin to interweb what we do, and so we offer intensive case management, but not just through our CILs, right?

We partner with the with the FRCs, we partner with other agencies that may have other resources that we do not have.

Systems advocacy is happening on a broad basis, but also in engaging with um the various aspects of our strengths within our network.

There's mentoring happening, and I'll get get to this a little later, but sometimes our entry points to serving children of uh that have serving families that have children zero and five is not a pregnant mom, right?

And so we have to be nimble in being able to identify how do we have entry points into the community and into families so that we can serve uh the um our most needed community.

So these are some of the numbers of what has happened over the last year.

Um, we have been able to refer 168 uh individuals to pre prenatal care.

We've been able to support 265 pregnant women.

Again, speaking to this trusted environment and to the trusted network that they feel that they can come to one of our CILs and get these services.

Safe sleep uh education is one that we've had to adapt and pivot.

We found that quite a few of our caregivers and family members didn't want to sit through a PowerPoint presentation, right?

And so our our community has been innovative and they've created, I know, for the black community, if you if you can gather, people are open to what you have to say.

And so we've given them uh baby showers, just different community gatherings where they come, and they know that one they can engage in fellowship and community, but then because they're there already, we talk about these very important things.

How do you sleep your baby?

What support could you need?

What what resources do we need to get to you so that you can continue to do this work?

And so I just want to elevate um we started with one baby shower uh about a year and a half ago, and in the past year we've had four baby showers across all of the of the um neighborhoods, and so we we're paying attention to what it is that is working, what it is that our community is responding to and providing um those services.

Because of that, we were able to distribute 89 cribs, and this is just speaking uh from the RCILs.

So there are there's great work happening beyond our CILs, but just wanted to underscore that.

And here we also highlight the other uh offerings that we have available, and I I wanted to ensure that we underscore the importance of that to what I've just uh mentioned earlier, that sometimes we don't get the pregnant mom, or we don't um have the the caregiver that comes in with a zero to five, but these other offerings that we are um that are in the community are creating opportunities for entry points.

So when they have youth-led activities, we're talking about all the four cause areas, right?

So they're hearing about this, they're they're being educated, but also becoming more open as we realize that we have to uh develop and build trust in our community, and so just wanted uh to highlight that.

But we are doing some specific uh work, and so I wanted to highlight our partnership with the concrete needs program, which I'm sure you all have heard about.

So, in partnership with DC FAS, we were tasked with serving families uh who had children zero to five years old or pregnant um pregnant adults or pregnant youth, and to be able to serve them with concrete needs so that they could be stabilized, and then we can serve them for it further.

And so these were um identified in the same way that our CIL neighborhoods were identified, they were areas that needed the most services.

These zip codes were experiencing the most entry points into CPS, and so from that point, we identified again.

If we would go back to our slide, the trusted partners in those neighborhoods, and so they were trusted with getting these resources out to the community when most needed.

I just want to um say that um, and this goes back to I think your first slide, but uh what you just mentioned about the geography involved, and it's important to remember the history of that.

The history of that is that that uh those seven communities um certainly uh it's undisputable that's where the need is the most.

But it was back in 2011 where the data was telling us uh black babies and young children were dying at these enormously disproportional rates, and that's where the heat maps you know came in.

We looked at 20 years of data, that's where the disproportionality was excessive.

So it's important to not, I think just acknowledge rightfully that yes, there's absolutely that's where the need is, but the most profound part of all of this, right?

It's where kids are dying that shouldn't be dying.

It's it's we need to be as blunt as that to remind ourselves what this is about.

Yes, thank you for underscoring that.

Uh yes, so uh with the concrete needs, um, one of the things that we realized that it's difficult for families to think about how do I execute what I learned in safe sleep?

How do I make a sound decision when you're under stress?

When you're thinking about, I don't actually have a car, and my youth, my children don't live, we don't live in the same neighborhood because of housing insecurity, so I can't get them to school, or I can't get to work, and so I lose my job.

Where am I gonna feed my children?

And so this this program is unique in that way that it does something that's feels small but isn't small at all.

It stabilizes folks to be able to breathe, to have a moment of respite and to begin to think through okay, base now that this is taken care of.

Now that I know that maybe I'm not gonna lose my house, or that I don't have to walk all over Sacramento, what can I do to provide my family um with the with the appropriate things that they need?

And then it's coupled with because of the web of partnership and our network case management work.

So we don't we they don't they not only help with the immediate needs but remain committed to those families and walk them through so that then not only stepping out of crisis but building a sustained stability.

Uh so this this program has been exceptionally uh impactful and beneficial, and you'll hear from a family member uh who has benefited from this.

And so, what do the numbers look like?

Um, we have folks across four uh to your point, Supervisor Cerna.

They commissioner, sorry, different presenting to different uh audience.

Um they we identified four of our partners in these zip codes that were identified where the entry point was the highest, and so the the risk of death also highest, and they have been working with these families throughout the year, and a total of 363 families have been stabilized.

I'm gonna pause because I think that's really uh easy to just gloss over and to stop.

But um, what if those 363 families meant 363 youth that did not die, right?

I think that um it is incredible work that we have to highlight that every step and every prong of the work is equally important.

And so this is just the um how the work is is being translated across the different neighborhoods, and these are the dollars, right?

So far, this is how much we've been able to invest into the communities, and as you see, some of the most needed is immediate uh support with rental assistance, mortgage assistance, transportation, just essential furnishing, things that we don't think about on a day-to-day, but definitely can be very disruptive as to how you manage your household and um how you care for the folks in your family, and so just again highlighting some of those uh needs.

Total, we have been able to support with 787,000 for these families, whether it's whole hotel stay, groceries, clothing so that they're able to go to school and child care, emergency hotel say, so that we can support them into permanent housing.

So this is the incredible work that your decisions um are making possible, right?

So that was our uh program, our program highlight, and then I want to talk about um 10 years into the work, right?

I think that is worth celebrating, but there's some things that we probably can learn from doing something uh repeatedly for 10 years.

There's certainly success as we've seen in the first few years of execution that we were able to uh incredibly decrease uh the the deaths that were happening, and then we were thrown with some wrenches with the pandemic and other factors.

But I will say, although uh the pandemic definitely brought up uh some challenges, it also identified the strength of the network.

And so when we needed to provide care, when we needed to provide groceries, we didn't have to think about how do we do this?

Who do we go to?

Who will the people listen to when we need to do education on vaccines and so on and so forth?

And so the network pivoted to provide what was most needed in that in that um in that era.

And so I think that it speaks to the strength of what it is that you're investing in.

That although our four areas are, you know, our areas are those four causes, that it serves families much deeper and beyond those causes.

When other challenges arise, we know where to go and how to execute and with who to execute that to.

So that's the proven pathway, right?

To community.

We trusted folks that the community can continue to to uh approach.

The systems change that's that's happening, and I'm sure someone else will share about this, but we've been able to uh connect with health care agencies, and now it's normal, right, that you don't really leave the hospital without having first heard about safe sleep education.

Those are systems change that we are very proud to say that we partnered and and had a way um in making those happen.

And in disparities have also shifted, right?

We were able to impact those numbers and have seen an increase in some of those, and we'll need to pivot and to restrategize.

But we did we have seen preventable deaths happen, and so um not happen, and so that that's something to to um be able to relish in.

And then the expanding of the reach, we are very close to being able to to publish our RFP for the eighth site, and um before the end of the year, we'll be able to say that we have an eighth site in Rancho Cordova.

And so the work that we've seen be successful in those eight uh seven neighborhoods that were identified over 10 years ago.

Be through research and through data, we were able to identify a new zip code that is much needing the work of BCLC um in partnership uh with First Five.

So our commitment remains the same community-driven, community serving, um, and we will continue uh to do this work.

We are revisiting some some things.

Actually, let me go back.

Oh, what we find is that with the climate now, we have to be attentive about how we do adjust, right?

During the pandemic, we heard often the adage of you know, when everyone catches a cult, the black community catches pneumonia.

And so I think that that is often true with other populations that are marginalized, and so now as we see that the targeting is taking place, we have to be prepared for that for some challenges that will be more difficult challenges for our community and the folks that we serve than others, and so um we're looking straight on to the challenge but feel equipped because during the pandemic and the added challenge that came there, we felt equipped, we felt ready to stand up to those challenges, and we will continue to do so.

We find ourselves at the crossroad of a new strategic plan.

Um, some of you may know that the data and the goals that we had set were up to 2020, and so and over the last year and a half, we've had um much research, so in partnership with ASR, um with our internal learning and evaluation team, but also the community.

We didn't want to rush through this strategic plan as it needed to be informed by the community.

Uh, we often say that those closest to the problem or those closest to being impacted by the problem are the ones who know what the solution needs to be.

And so this was important that we didn't rush through the process and and just making up some new goals that maybe looked good on paper and were consistent with data, but we're not sensitive to what the community said.

And so we've had uh a few town halls and listened to what um the the community has said they need, and in additional to our four four cause areas, they have brought up.

Yes, these cause cause-cause areas are important, but we're often interfacing with housing, um, you know, the the housing uh crisis.

We're often interfacing with just stressor and um mental health issues.

They're often interfacing with these these factors that keep them from being able to succeed in those four cause areas.

So that you'll see um very soon we'll we'll share with the board uh supervisors um this new strategic plan that takes all of that into consideration as again we are serving and supporting families that are multidimensional, right?

And so our solution has to reflect that.

Um yes, and then the other this is uh a soft launch, so I won't get too much into it, but thinking about how do we not only reduce percentages but begin to actually tackle to eliminate the disparity altogether.

One of our uh steering committee members mentioned um if we can't eliminate all deaths, right?

Um, at the very least, all deaths of black youth, at the very least, the black children should be dying at the same rate as everybody else.

And so we're making the shift, understanding that any child dying is absolutely egregious and nothing will stand for, but beginning to truly lessen um that gap so that whatever there everyone is experiencing in Sacramento County, at least we know it's not just the black community, everyone is, and then we can tackle that together.

Um, but that there shouldn't be the case where we can actually say, right, that when black children catch a you know, when the general population catch a cold that black children are catching pneumonia, and so that's the strategy that we're gonna take going forward, um, deepening our commitment to the community, deepening our commitment uh to this work to eliminate um the disparities and to eliminate uh African American child deaths and also to move beyond response into building healthy thriving communities.

I think that it's important to definitely uh focus on the identified problem, but we need to think beyond the problem and think about what is the ideal, and I think our black families deserve to have united um unfractured communities who are healthy and thriving.

That is my presentation.

I think I'm just gonna ignore the slide because they said your questions should wait till the end.

But if you have any comments, I'll open uh it up for that now.

Thank you.

Uh great presentation.

I really appreciate what you had to stress there during the last couple minutes um of uh what you presented because I think it's worth uh noting that at least my perspective on things is that when we first had uh the launch of uh the RAAACD effort and the Blue Ribbon Commission and it stemmed from uh child death report and 20 years of child death reports.

We I think we all kind of approached it from um somewhat of a clinical uh uh perspective.

And in other words, we looked at the data, right?

And the data was the metrics were, you know, both percentage and number actual numbers of deaths, and we had to do it that way at the time because that's what that's what precipitated all the attention, the rightful attention was wait a second, we've had these data sets for two decades.

What has Sacramento County done about it?

And it was crickets, right?

So I'm really encouraged to hear you say that the new strategic planning that is underway is I think gonna be um perhaps less clinical in terms of maybe doing deeper dives into prevention or um really understanding uh what the nuanced part of um the families that have suffered from the disparity traditionally are telling you, or telling the center, telling all of our CBO partners, um telling the county, and so uh I think it uh it really needs to be uh amplified here that um there is a kind of a self-reflection on the entire effort that's occurring to understand that hey, we you know what we set a goal, you know, we wanted to uh hit a certain percentage reduction mark by 2020.

We did that, we exceeded it.

Um, but I don't think it necessarily has to always be an arithmetic computation in terms of how we determine success.

You know, it can be um these anecdotal, important anecdotal um uh compliments that uh help us understand how to kind of circumnavigate the the entire issue, and it's not just you know, the black and white of death and alive, you know.

So great job.

Uh I I would be remiss if I didn't just publicly thank again uh Sierra Health Foundation, the center, especially Chet Hewitt, uh who has been just an incredible um uh individual and or organizational partner uh throughout uh the entire I'm not calling it 10 years, I'm calling it what whatever it is 14 years, um, and uh so I really do appreciate um you know what you what you've had to share here today and um I'm gonna now be quiet and open up the door because I got a commissioner that needs to use the restroom real quick.

So anyone else have comments, okay.

I have I have a couple uh comments and maybe or blend it with questions.

One, I just want to thank you for this last slide because it's aspirational, and when you when you operate from a stance of operational, you move differently.

So that very last bullet that says legacy forward, it just is everything is where the movement is going.

So I just really appreciate that, but still underscoring the reality of where where we're still needing to, you know, mitigate for those gaps.

But I was curious for the 363 families and um, you know, serving them at the cost of the over 700,000 dollars.

How long does it take the families to stabilize um um in the programs?

You know, how long do we hold them and stay with them was one of my questions.

And then I also realized that a lot of the families behind like vehicles, um, I'm sorry, behind rent and mortgage support, they're needing help with transportation.

Yes.

And I I did a program here in Sack County when I was at child action.

Um, it was the welfare to work under the 1996 welfare reform act, um, during the Clinton years to get folks from the pipeline into the child care industry, but was coming off the welfare system.

And the one of the number one barriers was two things.

It was child care, so they could work and do the program, and the second one was was transportation, and they had vehicles sitting in their apartments, their mama's house.

They had vehicles, but they were inoperable.

And what I did was able to hook them up to American River College to their automotive department, because they were needing to fix cars and needed to work on something, and then here are these cars we need to, and I was like, wait a minute.

Yeah, let me put them together.

Now we couldn't get toll service and all.

We had to figure out I won't tell you what it did.

But we figured out some things to get the car to ARC.

Yeah, but my mind is like, okay, how can we bridge that gap?

So I was curious about do they have vehicles that just need to be worked on?

And sometimes they just need an alternator or a dead battery or tires.

I don't know.

Yeah.

So it's a lot in there.

I'm sorry.

Oh, you're fine.

So I'll I'll I'll just the last question first.

Yes, I think all of the above.

So some of them need vehicles just in general.

They find themselves with multiple children, and you don't have a vehicle at the moment because of whatever barriers have happened, and other folks to your point have vehicles that are functioning but may, you know, need to uh resolve some issues with motor vehicles or they need to have their vehicles fixed.

And so the array of of what the need is when it comes to transportation is so variant.

Um I'll leave it to one of our partners.

She can share deeply.

I think uh they're coming up uh later to to share that.

But yes, so I think our community uh partners do a great job at identifying those places like ARC or even uh you'd be surprised how many partners we have in the community that are mechanics that are willing to work and support, but there's always this gap of like how do we get it towed, or who if folks are only paying us, you know, charging for the actual parts.

How do we get that paid?

And so concrete needs has been able to support in those in those ways.

Um because if you're having to pick between do I eat or do I pay for the parts for my car to get fixed, the the option, the you know, the choice is clear, right?

So all of the above.

Then the other question is um, they will stay our community-based organizations will stay with the families for whatever time is needed.

And so sometimes it's a few months, for some, it's a few years, um, depending on what it is that they need.

Because again, uh the barriers if you remove one factor within there's still about five more that that they're having to navigate through.

We have to sort of work through it um one bite at a time.

Yeah, so they are committed to working um with the families as long as they need to be served.

Any other comments?

Okay.

Comments from commissioners.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you again for the presentation.

Okay, um.

Okay.

Uh, I do have some speaker slips here, so I'm gonna call unless there's another part of the presentation.

There is the data part of the presentation.

Of course, I'm just eager to hear from the public.

Sorry.

No disrespect.

Alyssa will get us through it.

It's okay.

I mean, we can skip my part too.

Sorry.

Hello, everybody.

I will wait for that to pop back up.

All right, and I will try to keep it brief um so we can be mindful of um all the speakers that we want to hear from as well.

Um, so as Linda mentioned, I am Alyssa Mullins.

I'm a senior project manager representing applied survey research, the external evaluator for first five Sacramento.

Today we're sharing our ACD uh program outcomes for the fiscal year 2023 to 2024.

We'll do a quick wrap-up of the uh three-year outcomes as this fiscal year uh is the end of the 2021 to 2024 three year uh strategic plan as well, and then we'll conclude with uh the most recent countywide uh rates of child death, which these programs aim to help reduce.

The RAACD initiatives emerged in response to the Blue Ribbon Commission's reduction goals for the leading disproportionate causes of preventable deaths for African American children.

First fives investments focuses uh focus on the first three for the zero to five age range.

So that's the uh deaths due to infant perinatal conditions, uh, infant safe sleep and child abuse and neglect homicides due uh for the ages zero to five.

First five zero uh 2021 to 2024 investments uh focused on funding uh four strategies focused on um serving uh black and African American communities and those living within the RAACD focal neighborhoods, including the Black Mothers United pregnancy peer support program, uh two programs within the birth and beyond family resource centers, including the Man Arcade Stronger Families Stronger Generations and the Valley High Village Program, the Safe Sleep Baby Infant Safe Sleep Program, and a public perinatal education campaign.

First, we'll start with the Black Mothers United or BMU pregnancy peer support program.

BMU aims to lower the Black Infant mortality rate, improve birth experiences and birth outcomes for mothers and babies, foster safe and empower pregnancies and transitions into motherhood, and improve access to risk appropriate and unbiased health services.

Participants receive weekly check-ins with pregnancy coaches as well as dual care lactation support, health resources, and group connections.

In the words of this pregnancy, sorry, in the words of this uh participant, uh, I like being in a group setting of moms where everyone looks like me.

I don't feel isolated.

Uh, she also shared that she still reaches out uh to her pregnancy coach for advice, even though she has uh completed the program.

Nearly all of the participants who uh entered the program during the fiscal year had at least one protective factor, such as uh receiving regular prenatal care, um enrollment in WIC, or if eligible enrollment in uh CalWorks.

84% had at least one health or socioeconomic risk factor that is measured, which can include uh but not limited to um uh sorry, um income lesson, uh 15,000, uh unstable housing, health, nutritional deficiencies, anxiety, depression, things like that.

More than half lived in one of the RAACD focal neighborhoods, and about one in five joined during the first trimester.

Can I ask a question real quick?

Yes.

Has there ever been uh application of like an ACES score for any of this?

Good question.

I don't know if there's an ACE-specific measure.

Because what you just mentioned line up naturally, that's why it triggered that.

ACES score specifically.

Do we have it's not one of the current assessments?

No, we use PHQ 9.

We don't use the, but we have a part of our annual trainings.

We utilize that to support educational staff so that they can pick up on some of the tools, but yeah.

It could be something we could consider adding as an additional assessment.

Like Commissioner Mook mentioned, I'm just listening to some of the parameters, and they're like, well, she's rattling off the kind of the ACEs indicator.

So maybe I'm sure all the hardworking staff they want more assessments to be in.

We're just adding on more work for you.

I swear every year I go to them, I'm like, do you want us to cut some things?

I swear we're happy to do that.

I know.

Sorry to know.

Alright, no worries.

Sorry, I'm trying to rattle fast and I'm okay.

Um, so as as part of the speaking of more assessments, as part of the postpartum check-in, BMU participants who delivered during the year are asked to complete a follow-up assessment.

And we did see overall improvements in the matched responses, including statistically significant increases in WIC enrollment.

While not statistically significant, I did want to highlight the 10 percentage point increase in CalWorks enrollment, the seven percentage point decrease in self-reported anxiety, the five percentage point decrease in participants with moderate to severe PHQ 9 scores, and uh 5% decrease in self-reported nutritional deficiencies.

Also, of interest is while you can see the self-reported depression percentage stayed the same at 18%.

What happened is the the individuals reporting depression at intake, most of those said no at follow-up, whereas the people at follow-up said no at intake.

So it actually can open the door to conversations around rapport and disclosures with the pregnancy coach over the duration of their program, as well as uh postpartum depression screeners, uh postpartum transitions, and mental health in those early stages of parenting transitioning to birth outcomes.

There were 66 BMU infants born during the fiscal year, and for the fifth consecutive year, there were zero newborn deaths as of program exit.

More than, yes, just wait, there's more.

More than 90% had at least one of the healthy birth outcomes measured, and when combined, 85% were both a healthy birth weight and full term.

This year, none of the infants were both pre-term and low birth weight, but a small number were either low birth weight or preterm.

And we saw promising results for those whose mothers were served by a doula with 24 out of the 26 infants born, both a healthy birth weight and full term.

In partnership with public health, we also looked at 12-month infant mortality outcomes for infants born to BMU participants during 2020, 2021, and 2022.

During this three-year period, there was 241 BMU births and unfortunately one infant death.

This individual represents 0.4% of the BMU births during this time frame and equates to a numerical rate of 4.1 deaths per 1,000 births.

With this individual infant, the BMU mortality infant mortality rate per 1,000 births was not only much lower than the countywide African-American infant mortality rate of 12.0 per 1,000 African American births during the same period, but also lower than the county-wide total during the same period of 5.2 per 1,000 births.

And we've actually been looking at the same data beginning with two um 2016 births.

So just to highlight how rare this unfortunate passing of this infant was in the combined seven-year period between 2016 and 2022, there have been a total of three BMU infants who have passed away in the first 12 months of life out of a total of 1,085 births.

So that's 0.3% of the infants.

I think that just really speaks to the value of pregnancy peer support initiatives like BMU, especially for African American families and mothers in Sacramento County, which can be highlighted here by this participant's quote.

Who says, I was so blown away by how kind and loving the environment was, I felt so welcomed and seen for my skin color.

They care deeply about the black community, they give so much.

Next, birth and beyond family resource centers provide a range of services to empower communities and support family well-being.

Maybe there's a question for Julie.

Why isn't the FRC in South Oak Park receiving RAACD funding?

In I'm sorry, why isn't which one?

I'm if I'm reading if I'm reading this correctly on the slide here, it says only two of the nine.

Yes.

We know that 95820 is one of the highlighted community, there were zip codes.

Right, right.

Which includes South Oak Park, and we have a FRC that is a centerpiece to the Fruit Ridge Community Collaborative.

So I'm wondering why isn't funding being offered directed to that FRC.

Good question.

This is um this is really a sort of a holdout from the original funding when about uh was it 10 years ago, five years ago, probably 10 years ago, actually.

It was 10 years ago, it's right before I started.

Um the uh commission looked at the black infant death rates and and selected the two areas that have the highest rates.

That was Arden Arcade and the Valley High area.

And so those two we did there was no FRC in Arden Arcade at that time, so this commission funded the opening of that FRC, and then there was an FRC in Valley High run by SAC Children's Home, and you all boosted bolstered that FRC to be able to have a separate program called the village.

Over the course of the last 10 years, we did actually one time go out to bid to see again.

We still had very specific neighborhoods that could apply, but those two agencies won the contracts again and were refunded.

And when we just did this strategic plan process, uh we kept what what had already been working, and so we didn't go out to bid again.

Does any of this what you just explained uh to my question have anything to do with first five really looks at three out of the four leading causes because of age, right?

Correct.

So does that limiting factor have some influence on why those two particular FRCs again um kind of uh seemed more um I don't want to say relevant because it's all relevant, but it it's more germane to the three out of the four leading causes that we're focused on.

Correct.

And those primarily were for primarily child abuse prevention.

Um which is one of the main things in our partnership with um, that's what you're talking about.

Exactly.

The CAN homicides, all right.

Thank you.

Sure.

So within these two programs, the home visiting participants increased agreement with the effective black parenting um program home visiting model behaviors, uh increased protective factors and increased access to immediate needs.

The Make Parenting a Pleasure group parenting education participants, improved positive parenting knowledge and skills.

We did not have outcomes data for the participants for the effective black parenting group parenting education participants this year.

The participants receiving level two crisis intervention case management showed increased stability and self-sufficiency in their areas of focus through their individualized goal plans set with their case manager according to the family strengths builder questionnaire.

And the participants receiving the light touch social and emotional supports, participated in activities like diaper distributions, peer supports, and other pop-up and group activities, such as a Mother's Day event.

Two highlights from our family resource center participants.

First, we have a home visiting participants whose fictional name is Skye.

She described herself as a Native American mother whose child is multiracial.

She was seeking support with child development and parenting skills and was excited to learn about the effective black parenting home visiting because she wanted to support her daughter's embrace of her African American identity.

Through the home visiting participation, she completed the safe sleep baby workshop, connected to Medical to get insurance for Medical to get insurance for her daughter.

She learned about her daughter's developmental stages, and she shared that she is continuing to learn about historical and modern parenting based in the perspective and wisdom of African ancestors.

Skye said, I want my daughter to know as much about African culture and I as she can, and I wanted to be able to learn from black women.

Our next participant participated in the crisis intervention case management, and we will call her Imani.

Imani was fleeing a domestic violence situation and living in transitional housing with her four children between the ages of infant to teen years.

She reached out to the family resource center for housing support and was initially connected to the home visiting program when she through that process realized that the case management process was a better fit for her needs at the time.

Through the case management process, she was connected to a holiday gift registry, food boxes, diapers, and a micro uh transit program, which uh helped her save up to eventually get her own car as well.

She also received housing leads, which resulted in her getting um uh getting selected for income-based housing lottery, and at the time of follow-up, she was getting ready to move into her own place and said that she is still using family resource center support for things like activities and diapers here and there.

Our next program is the Safe Sleep Baby campaign, which aims to facilitate knowledge and behavioral change about infant safe sleep practices to decrease infant sleep-related deaths.

During the fiscal year, more than 1,000 caregivers received the one-hour education workshop.

61% lived in the RAAACD focal neighborhoods, and about one-third were African American, and more than 600 curbs were distributed, and one-third of those went to African American participants as well.

As this participant says, I feel more confident keeping my baby safe while she sleeps.

I didn't realize it was such an important topic, but now I do, and I also have a safe place for her.

And in addition to direct services provided to families and caregivers, more than 200 community-based service providers and 70 healthcare workers were trained in uh facilitating the safe sleep workshops and safe sleep baby education continued to be implemented in all of the main birthing hospital systems in Sacramento County.

Each year, Safe Sleep Baby conducts follow-up calls with a sample of participants to ask about their practices following the training.

Uh, when we match their reported intentions prior to completing the workshop to the reported practices uh intentions matched their uh practices after at the follow-up call, we saw overall improvements for the key safe sleep practices.

African American participants were significantly more likely to report always sleeping their baby on their back at follow-up compared to before the workshop.

And while not statistically significant, at least nine out of ten African American participants reach for follow-up, were exclusively sleeping their baby in a crib or pack and play.

Now, there in the 2021 to 2022 cohort, we saw a slight decrease a couple years ago between that intake and follow-up with the sleeping in a crib or pack and play, which led uh the safe sleep baby staff to do some outreach and focus groups to identify some of the challenges that families were facing using that pack and play.

They were able to identify some opportunities to improve their trainings and the narratives.

And in the two cohorts that we've seen since that 2021 to 2022 cohort raised these questions, we have seen improvements in both cohorts since.

So that has been impressive to see that in action.

Our last strategy is brief because the 23-24 was the final year of funding for the perinatal education campaign.

So the activities were primarily focused on wrapping up.

But this strategy included two major branches, which are the SAC Healthy Baby and Model of Caring, which was formerly the unequal birth campaign.

In 2023-2024, the two strategies were merged onto one website, and the team created tools to help providers connect families to resources and to help medical providers and birth workers understand the racial biases and discrimination that black women experience in order to reduce the likelihood of negative birth outcomes.

And I just want to highlight for this program that personally I have been really impressed in seeing how this campaign evolved over the past three years in centering community feedback and combining both individualized stories as well as data-driven statistics to not only reach and empower individuals but also to connect with providers as champions for change at a systems level, and I look forward to seeing how the partners incorporate what they've learned over the past few years into their organizations moving forward.

Before we move on to the countywide data, just to wrap up with some key takeaways for these four programs overall, the program participants often lived in the RAACD focal areas, showing that the direct services are reaching the communities that have historically shown the greatest opportunity for support.

Participants have gained access to a range of community resources.

They have improved protective factors as well as parenting knowledge and skills.

Birthing parents who engage in peer support have had healthier birth outcomes and lower rates of infant mortality compared to countywide rates.

They have significantly improved infant preparedness and safe sleep practices.

They have received more than 1,500 cribs across the three fiscal years and have had opportunities to engage in community events, access information online, and have shared their stories in ways that will impact providers and other communities for years to come.

And as these two providers say, the support is great.

I felt heard and understood during this birth and pregnancy, and I know how to protect my baby, which gives me peace of mind.

Okay.

Now, as we transition from program highlights into countywide trends, I just like to stop and pause to acknowledge that the language that we use when we talk about trend directions and goals and rates can appear to situate things like child deaths as just data or units of analysis rather than the actual human cost and consequences that the families and the communities and our direct service workers and the child death review team navigate at a more personal level.

So even though our work focuses on this quantitative lens, I just want to start by recognizing that we all know in doing this work, and in this room and outside of this room, that we know that these are not just numbers and statistics.

These are children and families that are impacted, and that continue to motivate this community impact model.

Addition to that, I also want to situate us in the context of time.

So we're now stepping back a little bit further, as the most recent data in the calendar are include the calendar years 2020, 2021, and 2022, which of course are the height of the unprecedented COVID pandemic.

So in addition to the physical implement implications, uh COVID created lasting and numerous social, economic, mental health, and more ripple effects, and of course these disproportionately affected communities of color and compounded existing inequities.

So if we look at our table here, we see the uh each of the blue ribbon commission goals to reduce racial disparities in child deaths for black and African American children.

Since the Blue Ribbon Commission initially set 2020 as the goal year, and since we report data in three-year increments, our uh benchmark year is reported here for the 2018 to 2020 period, as that was the first year that we introduced 2020 data.

The uh two columns outlined in orange reflects the same information, but for our most recent data point, and then also adds in that column for the most recent year uh for the uh percent reduction or the percent change in the disparity gap between uh African Americans and all others over time as well.

And um I also want to note that uh for the purpose of the first five report, the percent change in overall death as well as uh child abuse and neglect homicides are reported uh here for the zero to five population.

Uh so if you are looking at reports in the future for the zero to 17 population, the rates um calculations, the whether or not the goal was exceeded and what that percent reduction uh or percent change would be will look a little different as well.

So that those these are based here on uh the uh zero to five um rate per 100,000 population, and I won't get into this in too much detail since we'll be looking at most of these on uh slides going forward, but I did want to just kind of bring us back to that conversation about COVID.

Um so if we look again at that uh benchmark um column in the center, even though it does include the 2020 COVID year, two out of the three years included are pre-COVID, um, whereas again that uh most recent data is very fully immersed in COVID, where we're having uh difficulty accessing services, um, just lots of again that that ripple effect really widespread impact.

So even though we don't have a measure of saying, yes, this is a control for COVID, or yes, this is how COVID impacted.

What we can see is that if we just look at those two middle columns, we can actually see some regression even in the areas where reduction is still happening.

So if we look at that, um that goal of uh overall reduction, we see that as of 18 to 20, um, the goal for overall uh reduction was uh exceeded at 30 percent, whereas as of 2020 2020 to 2022, that reduction wasn't as steep at 19 percent.

So it still exceeded, but it wasn't as as sharp.

Um, and we see that for uh each of those.

So uh we can say again, without necessarily quantitatively measuring and including COVID as a variable in this process, we can say that it is likely that COVID is playing a role in this process.

Before you leave the slide, yes, oops, wrong direction.

Oh, wrong direction still.

Yeah, um, this kind of goes back to an earlier comment that I made um about the the three out of the four that that first five focuses on three out of the four um types of death, um, excluding the third-party homicide.

However, the parenthetical at the bottom here made me think that if have we done a look back at like the last 14 years, let's say since we the county and first five began um really really honing in on the the data here.

A look back at third party homicides that do uh include victims that fall into zero to five subcategories, and my point where I'm going with this is that yes, I think we you might generalize, some might generalize that perhaps third party homicide generally might involve older children teenagers and the adults that maybe uh commit unfortunately the homicides against uh the older kids but do we know whether or not there are cases where we have had uh third party homicides where the victims have been zero to five and if so why wouldn't we try to tailor some of uh the interventions that are generally being implemented through the broader effort outside of just first five to to focus in on prevention when it comes to uh what we can uh try and decipher from the circumstances of those those unfortunate third-party homicide instances that involved uh a very young person.

In most cases, if it's a homicide, it is um related to child abuse and neglect, right?

Which is a separate category.

Most if not all of the third party homicide is one child killing another child.

Um define child, that's what I'm getting at.

Yeah, like the teenage years, okay.

Yeah.

Um, but that's that's you're saying that kind of not telling me the numbers, right?

I wouldn't expect you to have nothing to do.

I'm gonna look at Linda to see if she has them.

I doubt I don't think we would have them off the top of our head, though.

And if I if and if it's the case where it just doesn't happen, that's a I understand that.

Yeah, but I but I don't know that for certain.

Yeah, it's a good question.

We um would probably need to circle back with you and defer to child death review team, um, and also Alyssa, we have a grid of all of the um child deaths 0 to 17 and the causes, but I don't believe I don't recall seeing one for zero to five, but I have to double check.

Yeah, again, what kind of inspired me to chime in here is this parenthetical doesn't say ages six to seventeen, it says ages zero to seventeen.

So just kind of made me think well.

Yeah, we can definitely check and see if CDRT already runs that for us and it's zero every time, or if it's something that that we just haven't asked for before to confirm.

So we can definitely just make sure because they they do provide um, you know, for instance, with um the CAN homicides, we get that zero to one, zero to five, and zero to seventeen.

So um we can we can definitely just ask to be sure one way or the other.

Very good.

Thank you.

Commissioner Kravitz's words.

Just to that point, I'll say, um, as someone who works primarily in the youth violence prevention space, and to Jadea's earlier point about the multiple points of entry to um the BCLC services, um, at least where I'm most closely connected, which is our UC Davis uh hospital-based violence intervention program, um, all of the case management for both uh young people under 18, but probably more germane to to this conversation, um, the 20 to 30, those young adults who are the most impacted by third-party homicide, but who have kids who are under 18, including given that age range, lots of kids that are zero to five are referred to their local BCLC um collaborative case management.

Um, so I think there are great interfacing.

No, thank you for that.

So, what I'm hearing you say is uh based on your your you know very close professional experience and focus on this is that maybe they're not the zero to five deaths, but they're certainly zero to five consequences that are that stem from young adult homicide.

So again, that's a great point.

I think maybe we are uncovering something that perhaps we should have been uh understanding a little bit better than we have in the past.

Thank you.

All right, we're gonna uh take a quick look at overall infant deaths.

Now, this is not an area that's covered uh directly in the uh blue Ribbon commission goals, but since it is a major focus on uh four first five, um we do cover it in detail in the report as well as in our um presentations.

So uh this is our infant mortality rate.

Um as uh we uh briefly mentioned on a previous slide, the African American infant mortality rate for um 2020 to 2022 was 12.0 per 1,000 births, um, and that reflects an 11% uh net increase uh compared to the baseline, um, as well as an 8% increase in the disparity gap um or the disproportionality between African American infants and all others.

And again, that's that those are COVID years.

Yes, exactly.

And um we'll also just look at this one particular in a little bit more detail uh in table form just to acclimate a little bit more to kind of where these uh numbers come from, as well as some of the contributing factors to this, as well as another uh kind of deeper way of looking at this.

So a couple things to note here.

First, we see that the number of black and African American births has been declining.

Um so if we look at 2012 compared to 2022, we see um that there are several hundred fewer births, so each additional death has a larger impact on that calculated rate.

Um so the total number of deaths uh combined for those three years for 2020, 2021, and 2022 is 61, which is actually lower than 2012-2013-2014, despite that net increase.

Um, however, so is the number of births.

So we're seeing that that net increase in the overall rate per 1,000 births.

Um, however, it is also concerning to see that if we look at 2019 in that middle highlighted row, uh, we're seeing a uh numeric increase in the number of in of deaths um each year, where the 2022 number is actually equivalent to the 2012 number, so definitely something for uh the county to monitor in terms of um the impact of COVID as well as any other um means of intervention.

Is it is it fair to uh conclude from this chart that um if I'm not mistaken, I wanted I want to say the first years that uh both the county and first five were finally budgeting for uh the this effort, the broader effort to reduce African American child deaths was 2016, 2017.

When we started earlier than that, 15 maybe um 15 was I think when we became fully implemented, but even first five started working on this even before 2015.

It's why we used 2012 as the baseline because that was the year that nothing was going on.

No, I understand, but I I'm recalling back from county budget hearings, and I want to say 15 was was probably the first budget that we that it made some dedicated allocations.

Yeah, 13 fiscal year 1314 was when first five Sacramento started funding, and then fiscal year 1516 is when the Board of Supervisors approved funding for the CILs and began funding.

So where I'm going with this is is it fair then to, and of course, money being thrown at something doesn't necessarily solve anything, but can't hurt.

Um do we correlate um the fact that you see the bottom row there, the numbers go from double to single digits for what four straight years, and then we get to COVID and it bounces back up that that might have something to do with resource allocation.

I would say it's a fair correlation at minimum.

All right, thank you.

Professional professional opinion.

Don't quote me on it, even though it's live.

Commissioner Moak.

Yeah, I feel this is my annual um moments.

Um, do I need to go to the bathroom?

No, uh, to just I I understand I I I've had the um to call it the pleasure isn't the right word because being involved and seeing what what the work that CDRT does and all that comes into it, all the data collection from all the different angles, county process, everything.

I would just the again every year I say the same exact thing with the same presentation and have for probably 20 years now, which is the fact that we're looking at 2022 is not doing anyone any justice at all.

Right.

I mean, and I and uh in the in the world we are in today with real time being able to make decisions based on 2022 data to what we didn't what we do now would be reckless.

Uh we wouldn't do it.

We would need to see 2023, 2024.

And so I know I get it.

I know I understand the logistics and the mechanics and the issues and the I think I think I understand it, or at least I've been told why.

I just have a hard time still uh wrapping my arms around with being okay that we are in such a data lag for this topic.

Absolutely.

So I will say I think one thing that may benefit us in two years from now is that um we are actually a little bit even more delayed this year.

Um because the, and I'm gonna potentially butcher this for our partners.

They might be screaming at me, but there was uh a grant received that impacted um the timing of being able for the CDRT team to be able to reconcile the 2022 deaths because the grant required such quicker reconciliation of the 2024 deaths for that grant.

So in 2024, we're gonna have the data a lot quicker.

Um we're in 2025, but I know exactly so yeah, so in 2027, we'll have the 2024 data a little quicker.

A little quick, yeah, exactly.

So potentially we might be able to look at 2023 and 2024 together.

I don't know necessarily, but uh it absolutely is is a a challenge when it comes to uh this work, absolutely.

And I will write my local congressman and figure out how to make it.

You tell them.

All right.

I know we are we are well over um and I I don't want to breeze through the most important things.

Um but uh just to uh quickly highlight um according to our most recent available data in the most anomalous years, um the infant deaths due to perinatal causes uh spiked in um 2020 to 2022 um now with a 14% net increase now exceeding our baseline value um and uh equivalent or um comparable to our uh peak of 2014 to 2016.

Um and unfortunately this is following a promising decrease in 2019 to 2021, where the rate was um meeting the uh blue ribbon commission goal um and the lowest for the first time.

Do we have do we have uh any background on uh the specifics and under what the like specific perenatal circumstances were that were could have been respiratory related, could have been something related with the pandemic.

The CDRT team might be able to uh share some more details on that when they release their more detailed report, but they only provide us the total numbers, unfortunately, instead of the uh circumstances of the what led them to those decisions.

Again, it it leaves at least this commissioner left with the the guessing game, I guess, that this is pandemic related.

I mean, uh based on the time and the I mean the huge bounce in the wrong direction.

That is where I would be afraid to chime in, but yes, right, understood.

Um we also saw a slight increase in infant deaths due to sleep-related causes.

Um, however, I do want to point out um on this one, it is a little bit of an anomaly as well.

Um, because um, if we look at um calendar year, I don't have a table for you on this one, but calendar year between 2015 and 2020, there was an average of about three African American infant sleep-related deaths per year.

In 2021, there was unfortunately seven, um, which we can potentially say that is likely due to decreased access to those community uh resources and that kind of more um community-based being able to to gather and and have some of those more detailed conversations about infant safe sleep potentially among other factors.

I'm sure.

But in 2022, this actually dropped back down to three, and um as an added highlight, the 2022 county total for all races combined was the lowest it has been, at least for all the data available here.

Um so even though the most recent rate increased uh causing the rate to fall just shy of that um blue ribbon commission reduction goal, um the 2021 anomaly is um really kind of largely contributing to that in addition to those ongoing decreases in the um number of births for African American um families in uh Sacramento County.

Um however, it is also important to point out that the uh 32% net decrease in the disparity gap since 2012 to 2014 uh still means that African Americans are still um experiencing uh infant sleep related deaths at uh 5.5 times the rate of all others.

And then our last slide here um shows that the uh reduction of African American child abuse and neglect homicides continues to exceed the blue ribbon commission reduction goal.

Um and again, just to uh reiterate the um previous slides were focused on infant deaths, which were rates out of 1,000 births, while canned homicides are discussed for all children ages zero to five.

So our rate is out of 100,000 children ages zero to five.

And we do see some increases in the more recent years, but I just want to be mindful that that is an increase from the very impressive zero in 2016 to 2018 to a total of three in the most recent data.

Um however, again, uh the disparity between the two groups decreased 57% compared to our baseline data, um, yet can homicides of African American children occurred at four times the rate of all others in the most recent data.

Thank you.

Great.

Thank you.

And thanks for putting up with our interruptions.

Uh it's it's uh good to have the data.

I think what it tells us, at least my the story that it's told me here today is that um a few things.

Uh we can't discount the fact that we went through a global pandemic and that's gonna have some influence.

We shouldn't treat that as an excuse.

Number two, uh we have seen upticks in certain types of um rates of death uh in the African American childhood population, but those upticks still fall under what the goal was.

So we we shouldn't uh celebrate the fact that there have been the upticks for you know uh that's obvious.

But we should also keep our eyes on the prize that you know we set out uh specific uh goals, and we in some in some instances uh are still below them.

But I would also say that maybe that's the indication that maybe it's time to change the goals uh so that we get even more aggressive on what we need to be aggressive on.

So um this is important to to understand.

Um I wish the numbers were better.

I don't it's not all bad news, but um again, um I think what it leaves me with is just there's so much more work to do, right?

And not just on behalf of the commission, but um the the entirety of the infrastructures, the human infrastructure that we have, thankfully in Sacramento County focused on this effort that just need to grab another gear and and get there.

So uh any other comments from commissioners following the presentation?

If not, we will hear from members of the public.

Thank you again.

All right.

Uh first up, we have uh Kenya Britney and Tamara.

Good afternoon, Commissioners.

Good afternoon.

Thank you for having us.

My name is Kenya Fakbeamy.

I'm the executive director of Heart Health First.

And then I have Britney Allen, who is my program director, and Tamara Walton, who is our lead pregnancy coach for the Black Mothers United program.

And so through her through her health first Black Mothers United program, we focus on connecting Black families.

And we just seen this data that told us that we had an 11% increase in infant deaths.

And I have to just say that when I looked at that data for the first time, it took me through a range of emotions.

I've been doing this work for 26 years.

And then to see that number, it was kind of hits you in the gut.

And so in all the emotions I went through, I feel angry at times.

I felt guilt like did we do enough?

I felt pain, genuine pain, because each one of those numbers is a baby.

And the last emotion that I kind of felt was and which is one of the hardest ones, which is acceptance.

I accepted the fact that the African-American community has the largest disparity gap on all levels.

And my acceptance did not mean that I wasn't going to continue our fight, right?

That change is not happening.

It may be slow, but I see the seeds that have been planted in our community, and I believe that this effort is going to progress in positive outcomes, and we've seen some of that.

Good afternoon, commissioners.

My name is Brittany Allen.

And one of the biggest responsibilities we have is to raise awareness of these devastating child death rates.

As we, the black community, become more informed with reality that the odds of having a healthy birth outcome is not in our favor, the more we begin to seek out these support services.

We look for a sense of community moral support and someone to advocate for our well-being in these hospitals.

And during the height of the COVID pandemic, many expectant mothers were hesitant to engage with BMU due to safety concerns, and they didn't want to leave the comfort and safety of their homes or have someone come into their homes to provide their uh in-person visits.

However, now that the pandemic has eased, uh pregnant black women are seeking these face-to-face uh support services, and the increase in awareness around the maternal mortality and infant loss is driving them to connect with programs like BMU for that education and those resources that could help them avoid becoming another statistic.

And there are not very many programs like BMU, and we build this genuine relationship with each mother.

We listen to their needs and we provide that personalized support that they need, and it's not just to ensure the healthy pregnancy, but to make uh their pregnancy experience a celebrated one, and our mission is for every mother to leave the hospital with their baby in their arms, and it's just it happens too often that they don't, and that should never be acceptable.

Thank you.

Good afternoon.

My name is Tamara Walton, and I'm kind of speaking on behalf of being a pregnancy coach and being a mom.

So uh eight years ago I gave birth to a beautiful little boy as a recipient of the services from Black Mothers United.

And now I'm a pregnancy coach.

And I've seen things both before.

I'm the lead pregnancy coach.

Thank you.

And I've seen things before and after COVID.

I've witnessed firsthand the drastic changes.

Families have faced.

Mothers are were either urgently seeking support or now fearful of the unknown, especially when it came to how vaccinations might impact them or their babies.

Support during deliveries and even routine doctor visits was were limited.

Community outreach is either obsolete or very hard to come by.

And most were actually drive-through, pick up and go, with little to no connection.

So it's only within the past year or two that things have started to feel somewhat like normal again.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

Is it Tubby Tennessee?

So my name is Kivon uh Mr.

Holmes.

I work with a Roberts Family Development Center and Black Child Legacy.

I'm one of the case workers that uh what upholds case load throughout Sacramento.

And this is one of my uh my case law members took Toby Tennessee.

He's just gonna tell you guys a couple uh couple things about his story and how we helped him and help how to help him get through his challenges.

Alright, my name is Toby Tennessee.

I'm speaking on behalf of my son, famous, Tennessee, that's three, autistic, nonverbal.

He was left with his mom, and his mom went to work or whatever, and her boyfriend beat him and put him on life support for three days, and being that I never went through something like that.

Black child legacy and neighborhood wellness, they came together, and they don't filled in the gaps, like when he got off life support, they sent him home too early.

So being a parent, I went back to the hospital and I wasn't leaving, and they came in and then they was my voice.

So I wanted my son to be back healthy.

But the concrete needs that everything that I needed, they supplied it.

I was gonna say thank you.

Yes, sir.

We were able to provide them different wraparound services.

One of the uh services that we provided was uh housing, uh groceries.

Uh uh, I think we uh changed some locations as well because the environment that he was in wasn't safe.

So uh I believe she went from the north to uh South Richmond, not Richmond, uh Sacramento.

And uh maybe can give you a couple of things that we will we did for the wraparound services.

Uh um just a couple examples.

The emotional part, I mean, uh as far as being there for me and and and and just I can't describe all the stuff they did, but it was just mind bothering that.

I mean, like I don't know how to explain it.

It is is they were there for me, and when I wanted to give up, they didn't, they didn't they didn't just put it to the side, they they uh gave me some uh counseling, and famous is doing better now, and I'm just gratitude, gratitude, um, my gratitude for them and for the all the stuff they did is just I don't know that's good.

I don't know.

I ain't trying to start crying and stuff.

I'm gonna try to answer the phone on whenever he needs anything.

So I'm I'm here 24 hours for him, and then that's the type of dedication I put into my work, you know.

So uh I was able to provide them with all the services you needed to get to the next uh yeah, I appreciate it.

Thank you, appreciate it.

All right, um, Adriana, last one, nice to see you, hello, first five commissioners.

Um, I'm Edriana Marshall and this is Hendrix Johnson.

Wait a minute, baby.

So working with BCLC since 2016, I was a youth in high school.

Um, and then I switched over from the side to the side of CR Health Foundation.

But today I'm gonna be speaking through the lens of a first-time mom and a young girl who was born and raised and still resides in Sacramento.

Um, I've seen the fruit what First Five Commission has produced um throughout the years, but I have seen both sides of it.

I've seen the good and the ugly from the stories of the hospital, um, and people rejoicing and celebrating their babies to people getting the unfortunate views, not Hendrix.

It's gonna have that microphone.

Do you have something to say?

Do you have something to say now?

You say hello?

But the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Um, and from having the knowledge myself um to pouring into my colleagues to pouring into the people that I'm around and just supporting into my community as well, too, and also having the opportunity to share with people through platforms like social media.

Now, the question that everybody is asking is how do we continue to celebrate those posts of the the monumental first birthday that I just celebrated myself, me and my family, um, and that's by supporting the communities.

My belief is that anything successful starts with the family, and our families essentially are what gives us the drive and passion to do the things that we do on our day-to-day basis.

Um, unfortunately, families who look like me haven't had the best outcomes with generational trauma, grief, oppression, disappointment at the hands of so many people, plus the ongoing struggles of today, um, and the uptick and eggs and bacon and everything.

Um so I thank you on behalf of myself, my family, and families around Sacramento, um, that are striving to break some of those generational cycles and patterns by continuing to provide the services that center to push Sacramento, the love city of Sacramento, um, to united community and to center and to center ourselves to be more united up front um no matter the demographic, no matter the skin color, no matter the story, because again, family starts with us.

Those numbers represent our families and the families that were impacted, but I especially want to emphasize our families because these families could be so dear and near and close to your heart.

And I encourage all of us in this room to continue to educate to pour into the kids to continue to pour into the little Hendrixes.

Because they're gonna be young people someday too.

They deserve a seat at the table, and not only starts with as we continue to pour into these communities to provide the services, and thank you.

Thank you.

By the way, that is the most awesome first name.

Hendrix.

Yes, all right, Danielle Lawrence.

And that's uh that's the last speaker slip I have.

Hello, everyone.

Hello.

My name is Danielle Lawrence, and I am the executive director of Mutual Assistance Network.

Um, aligners in, so forgive me for my Lisp.

Um, Commissioner Cerna, you started out talking about the timeline, and I've been here from the beginning.

I run the incubator in Art and Arcade, um, which was absolutely funded by first five.

It was the ninth family resource center placed in our arcade in a neighborhood that had no formal services.

We stepped in, and we still are one of the very few nonprofits that serve community to this day.

So, what we've done is built upon the charge of black child legacy of that blue ribbon commission report that led to the funding of birth and beyond, we built on that.

We then wrote for the to be a CIO.

So, man is the only birth and beyond CIL, and so I think that that's something to note.

The work that we do is built upon it, the foundation of what your investment was.

So, not only do we have Black Child Legacy, we have the family resource center that is doing work.

Deresha oversees the family resource center efforts, group base, jasmine home visitation.

So when you hear strong family strong generations that these that's these two ladies leading.

Brandy is my CIL lead.

When you ask them why we do this work, it's because of the death disparity that started this.

They don't work in silos, they don't work separate.

If you ask Jasmine, does she work for BCLC?

Yes.

And if you ask Brandy, does she work for the Family Resource Center?

Yes, it's how we must do this work.

When we look at the data, and I promise you, every time I see it, I'm a data, I'm a data person, I'm an outcomes person.

So when we see the data not getting better, not improving, I tend to say, well, as a funder, I'd be like, Well, why am I funding this work?

But the truth of the matter is it would be worse if you weren't funding this work, it would be that much worse.

When you look at the percentage of people we serve compared to the number of African Americans in Sacramento County, we aren't funded enough to touch everybody.

So the efforts of our work is built upon each other.

I'm gonna add that for me, this work is so important.

Blue Ribbon Commission report led me back to man, led me to lead this work.

So add to the work that they do, Black Infant Health is a program that we run and operate.

Why?

Because perenatal conditions.

If I'm gonna be intentional, I gotta have some funding and some programming to help do that work.

And so we wrote for black infant health perinatal conditions.

I will say this as I see the data not improving for perinatal conditions.

That's my area of focus.

We have to figure out countywide, what are we doing?

Wonderful work Kenya's doing, but that's the work y'all see.

There are two other programs doing birthing work, and we're not doing it together.

It's in a it's operating in a silo, there's not a continuum of care.

There's opportunity systems to advocate.

So Julie, I'll be reaching out.

Um, I have some ideas, but like we've been doing this work, we see the opportunities.

I'm going to be quiet, make space and see if anyone wants to share.

Brandy is also our champion of kind of all things concrete needs, and so if you do have specific questions around what that looks like, what that has felt like, um, we have she has been in the thick of it, we have been in the thick of it.

The resources do not meet the need.

Um, just internally to even push out the resources, it doesn't meet the need, but we are doing the work, um, we're committed to that.

Sure.

Sure.

I'll speak briefly.

Um, thank you for having us.

I think um the concrete needs program has been essential in the way that we've been able to sure.

We don't always get funding that we're able to just issue at the request of the family for the needs that they need specifically.

So transportation, I love the idea of partnering with ARC.

That was beautiful.

Um, some of the other areas that came up around transportation was um families who have a financial hardship for something, and now they're behind on their car payments, or they can't afford the um they their insurance labs and now they need insurance, and now it's way more expensive to try to get new insurance.

So those are other ways that we were able to um support transportation just to answer your question earlier.

And so just being able to provide um financial assistance in the areas that families needed that changed the whole trajectory of their situation has been amazing.

Being able to uh provide wraparound services with between our agencies and our programs has been amazing, and um sometimes I feel like the data does not do the justice.

You're seeing one way that we supported the family, but it doesn't connect in all the different services in the different ways we serve the mom, we serve their youth through our youth programs, their families came to family events, we referred them for counseling, we provided financial assistance, and the data doesn't collect the wraparound services that we're able to provide.

So hopefully we'll get better at how the way that we're asking the the questions and the way that we're able to report the data to show like the tremendous wraparound services, and we're not just doing one thing, we might be doing 20 different things with a whole family.

And so that's all I want to say.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll say something real briefly.

Um, I just want to thank you and just give you a brief example of what your decisions have done.

We have um families that need emergency hotel um needs, and so we're literally taking families out of hot cars with infants, um, out of park benches with infants, um, and putting them into this some safe haven while we work with them to get them into transitional housing to work on their credit.

We have economic development programs where we support them in increasing their credit and doing what it is that they need to do to get to where they need to be.

Um, like Brandy just mentioned, uh, everything isn't reported, and hopefully we can improve on that, but it's so intentional and it's so purposeful, and it's so amazing um to be able to have the opportunity to support these families in these ways.

Otherwise they would be babies would be dying more than they are now.

Heat strokes, um, in the in the cold freezing weather as well.

Um, it floods in Sacramento, right?

And we got families sleeping in vehicles or on the levees.

You know what I mean?

So it's so imperative that we continue to do this work and to continue to be supported by you all in the way that we have been.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

So those are our final speakers.

Um I guess what I would just end with here, and then I invite my uh fellow commissioners to chime in if you are so inclined, but um try not to be too discouraged by some of the data.

Um, you know, no one saw a global pandemic coming, first of all, and uh none of us had the ability to control much of the circumstance around what that pandemic would ultimately do, which is isolate us all.

And so I think you really need to think carefully about what you see in the data, uh, temporally, like you know, the months and the years where we see the numbers change in the wrong direction.

And um, you know, I don't think there's any way you can ignore it.

You there's an association between the isolation that we all encountered and the fact that much of the great work that you were all doing, and the first five is funding and the county is is championing that uh is grounded in community, it's grounded in connection, it's grounded in all the things that a pandemic threatened.

Uh so I'm gonna be very discouraged if once we get past the pandemic years and we see the numbers continuing to go up, that tells a different story.

So let's be mindful of that.

I think I'm really inspired to hear not people getting terribly down about things, but like let's this is the time to redouble our efforts.

So I think that's good for all of us to hear, and we should embrace uh that spirit of really accepting the charge to do even more.

And uh we as a commission, I think have the responsibility to continue to do what we can in terms of the decision making that you expect of us to provide you the resources you need.

Uh Commissioner Gere.

Thank you, Chair.

First, I I just wanted to again thank um all of the community uh trusted partners and partners here and this commission.

Uh, there's a couple things that struck out during the conversation that I wanted to one highlight, uh, and that's from uh the perspective of my other uh previous hat on the board for the family justice center.

Uh and I know Beth probably Commissioner Hassett probably saw this as well that during the pandemic, particularly with child abuse and domestic violence, uh we saw we expected those numbers to be high and to grow even higher.

But one thing that uh I think is true, and I think we heard it earlier was that it would have been worse uh had we not had the intervention and the engagement from community partners who are here today.

So one I wanted just to highlight that component, and I feel very encouraged by just the the level of connection between the the partners.

Uh the second thing I wanted to um uh bring up was uh your comment chair on um uh looking in and digging a little deeper on the on the uh homicides from one zero to seventeen or one to seventeen uh and that's um in uh previous work that I had been working on was on the issues of gun violence and um uh and even John Hopkins University put out a report that showed the uh unfortunate um uh deaths uh from mishandling handguns and uh and the the uh and those were kids who were you know basically handling those handguns as well.

So I wanted to make sure that uh on the one to 17, like maybe we're not capturing that doesn't fall in the DV child abuse section, but it is one where still uh we see the largest number of uh fatalities, and what that John Hopkins report identified was that it was uh it was black youth that would still were at a much higher rate than others that were impacted by it.

So those two comments there, and then uh just as a as a parent who has had uh a young child uh taking them to the hospital for uh concussion, um, you know, I just that that testimony I want to thank the the father for their willingness to to express that uh um feeling because it just brought back just memories of being at the hospital with uh a kid with a uh with a head injury and and how how uh how just traumatizing that could be.

And so thank you to all those.

And and uh um last but not least, I'll just say I think my compadre here has seen um uh our little one at the microphone too.

So we see another future supervisor there on the so thank you, Chair.

Yeah.

All right, thank you, Commissioner.

All right, Commissioner Wesley.

Hi, I just I have to gather myself together now.

Um, I just want to say to the women who are doing this work, the black women who are doing this work.

I thank you.

Your ancestors honor you, they see you.

Um in terms of the data, I want to say I'm credibly um inspired by the doula um data around um the 24 out of 26.

I believe the data was that they were full birth, full term.

I was like, oh my goodness, because it brings back those ancestral roots and that way of cultural connection um to the mother.

So keep you know, whatever you're doing, the magic, keep doing it.

Um I was thinking about is there anything that we can learn from that doula work for the perinatal?

Um, is there something we can leverage, any gifts, any um learning edges um to close up those perinatal um supports, you know, minus knowing what happened during the pandemic.

I think there might be some nuggets in there.

I don't know.

I'm curious.

Um, and then the other piece I think I wanted to sh um think about was um it was around the question about the hospitals um I think I thought I heard something about the experiences in the hospitals but if that if I heard that correctly thinking about how um we could continue to um create a more positive culture in the hospital settings um that is culturally affirming and creating um better relationships in those settings so that we are seen and visible and those mamas are are loved on and those babies are loved on um and then the last piece um I know that social media I'm starting to learn more about social media I I never was on it till recently working in policy you're the one I'm the one oh my gosh it's now it's kind of I can see where like it does something to the brainer addiction but um I'm on Instagram anyway the Instagram thing um that's all I'm on but um I get I'm wondering about the vaccination piece like do people get misinformation or disinformation from that sphere and what can is there something we need to do to counteract that and be proactive in that space so um just thinking can we have some kind of campaign or leverage maybe existing campaigns are out there so that we make sure um that we have the right information on vaccinations and um that concludes everything now that I'm together all right thank you thank you commissioner commissioner moak not to I don't want to belabor this I appreciate all the comments I appreciate all your you know doing the Lord and angels work out there every single day and not and not feeling um you know that this was a punch that uh I I appreciate your your words about we have to use this as an opportunity to to get better do more and I hope that um I don't know see hearing some of you and seeing you out there you know helps I think would just fuel us to know that there are people that are dedicated to doing this every single day in these communities and in these homes that uh these families that desperately need it um so thank you thank you for that I will say that and Danielle knows this um years and years ago um we got a report actually here it was an early early um evaluation report that um showed that one of our home visitation programs was increasing drug and alcohol abuse I don't know if you remember that do you uh uh Danielle it was right it was at the very beginning when you started at man and what we they that was obviously somewhat interesting PhDs and other people very smart were like wait what is happening well how can a home visitation program in fact have this effect on people well and you guys know what I'm probably gonna say which is when you take the test the when you take the assessment to someone a new mom that you've just met you have incredible skills but you're but still you're asking questions have you ever done any drugs alcohol what are you using on a daily basis and they're like I'm not I'm good and you're like okay but what about uh what about smoking and other thing nope don't do that either over the course of time when you're pouring into these families they are trusting you more and more and more and therefore six months later at post-test or whenever the next set of assessments come through now they're like oh no I've been smoking weed for like years and you're like thank you like that's awesome like what an indicator of success that is for someone to disclose that they have that they trust you enough to say that and so I do want to be mindful especially of some of those I think the the homicide some of those are harder to to lump into this category but so much of it what you do is relationship based and trust based and the only way it works is when that's happening.

And so for these families that also have been so used to not trusting things and for things that they they cannot rely on things.

That's why these long term programs and support needs to stay consistent.

And even in a time when when we're facing numbers like this, it's like more it's what you said, it's more important to dig in and keep doing it.

So I'm gonna use that for my own like I'm not that's how I'm gonna get through this hurdle collect myself and I just I'm thankful every day that you guys continue to do this for families and people that need it most so thank you thank you no I know.

Okay.

All right.

Uh again, thanks to Linda.

Thank you.

You've been stalwart uh on this from day one.

And uh appreciate everything you continue to do.

Um, and uh of course, thanks to all of our partners and everyone involved with FRCs and man and again the center and Sierra Health Foundation, and I know I'm forgetting all kinds of folks, but CapC is yeah, thank you.

Um it it is uh impressive network of uh of people that give a damn about our young kids in this community.

We ought to be proud about that.

All right, uh next is our last uh item, which is commission member comments.

Okay to my right, my left.

All right, uh Councilmember Guerra.

This is an unusually long meeting.

They won't necessarily go this long uh every time, but uh welcome to uh the commission again and and to uh Shelby, thank you for uh being here.

And uh with that, if there's no further business before us, we stand adjourned.