November-December Children's Advocate

Check out our November-December Children's Advocate issue -- now available and online in English, Spanish, and Chinese! This issue includes a special supplement about how raising families’ income is a key strategy for improving the lives of young children

Special supplement:

• Money Matters: Community programs boost families’ incomes
• Money Matters: Money matters for child development
• Money Matters: What can I do to help?

Also in this issue:

• Grassroots Snapshot: Oakland homeowners win foreclosure protections
• Hot topics: Parents are taking action—in their homes and in the community—to protect girls from developing too soon
• Early Care and Education: Learning through play: Play activities that include letters and writing prepare children to read
• Hot Topics: Immigrant child care providers—and even many who were born here—sometimes find the system confusing
• Raising kids: Parents offer tips for talking with kids about advertising
• Bookbasket: Hard times
• News from the California Child Development CORPS
• News from Parent Voices
• News from the Children's Advocates Roundtable
  

In English at http://www.4children.org/current.htm
In Spanish at http://www.4children.org/current.htm#esp
In Chinese at http://www.4children.org/current.htm#chn

Proposed mid-year budget cuts

The worsening economy has led to a sharp decline in state revenues -- creating a $11 billion shortfall in the budget that was just passed. The governor has called a special session of the legislature to address this gap. He is proposing more cuts and some new revenues -- including a temporary increase in the sale tax and a tax on oil extraction -- to close the gap. Proposed cuts include:

Health
* Restricting eligibility requirements for working parents with Medi-Cal
* Reducing health care benefits to legal immigrants (from full-scope to emergency-only)
* Eliminating several Medi-Cal benefits, including dental and vision care
* Imposing monthly eligibility requirements for undocumented immigrants to get emergency care
* Increasing the amount that low-income seniors and blind and disabled people pay for Medi-Cal
* Reduce public hospital funding

Poverty
* Reducing CalWORKs grants by 10% (the maximum grant for a family of three would go from $723 to $651 a month)
* Changing time limit and work requirement rules, which would eliminate aid to tens of thousands of children
* Eliminating state-funded food stamps for legal immigrants (CFAP)

Schools
* Reducing Prop 98 funding by $2.5 billion

Child care
* Reducing child care benefits for working and CalWORKs families

For more information, contact: Health Access, Latino Coalition for a Healthy California, Western Center for Law and Policy