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I wrote and produced this story for broadcast and for CapRadio.org. Full story here.

STORY: Stories of high-profile celebrities, like Caitlyn Jenner, have catapulted transgender issues into the national spotlight. Still, the increased media coverage hasn’t provided a full picture of the challenges transgender men and women face on a daily basis.

Rates of unemployment, poverty and homelessness are higher in the transgender population. Discrimination is common and one study found that suicide attempts among the trans population is 41 percent, compared to the general population’s 4 percent.

These sobering statistics show there’s more work to be done, says Rachael Hudson, the operations manager at the Gender Health Center, a resource space for Sacramento’s LGBT community. The center has a special focus on helping transgender clients.

“We’re just starting, the visibility is just step one,” says Hudson, a transgender woman…… MORE HERE

I wrote and produced this story for broadcast and for the website. Full story here.

Story:  A bill that passed the Assembly Wednesday would require some of California’s public colleges to create resource centers for the state’s growing number of undocumented students. Advocates say a center that opened at UC Davis last Fall could serve as a model.

UC Davis sophomore Jesus Flores Rodriguez is a typical college student. He just finished three midterm papers by pulling an all-nighter.

“I’m a strong believer in that you have to get at least one hour of sleep to be efficient throughout the day, but I had to get my work done,” he says.

He always has enough energy for his internship at the AB 540 and Undocumented Student Center. AB 540 is a 2001 state law that allows in-state tuition for anyone who attends a California high school for three years, among other requirements.

Rodriguez’s job is to work with high school students, with uncertain immigration status, make the transition to college. Being undocumented himself, he understands that students have many questions.

“You’re dealing with financial circumstances, and at the same time, it’s academic,” says Rodriguez, a double major in political science and psychology. “A center specifically for undocumented students is necessary in that, other resource centers, as much as they provide, it’ll never fill that gap for undocumented students.” ……. MORE HERE

I produced the web and radio story about this Disc Golf course in Sacramento’s Oak Park neighborhood.

Disc Golf Helps Transform McClatchy Park

On Saturday, the City of Sacramento will unveil a renovation project it hopes will improve one of Sacramento’s troubled neighborhood parks. One feature added two years ago has had a positive impact. It wasn’t a new basketball court or soccer field. It was a golf course . More specifically a disc golf course.

Fourteen-year-old Andrea Vizcarra visited her San Diego middle school’s health center because of a bad cough. But the nurse she saw didn’t stop there. Vizcarra learned she also had high blood pressure.

Then Vizcarra got information and plenty of it. She says after talking with the nurse, she began eating more vegetables and fruits and looked into physical activities, such as running on a treadmill and boxing, so that she can avoid getting sick later in life.

“I don’t want to have a health problem,” she said, “when I can prevent it right now.”

Vizcarra’s visit took place at Monroe Clark Middle School’s Health and Wellness Center, part of a network of K-12 on-campus clinics in San Diego that aims to make primary and preventive services accessible to children.

The network of centers grew out of a partnership between The California Endowment, Price Charities and two well-established community clinics: La Maestra Community Health Centers and Mid-City Community Clinic.

Together, these organizations mapped out a section in San Diego’s City Heights neighborhood which include a high school, two middle schools and 10 elementary schools all within walking distance from one another. From there, they created a plan to provide health coverage to every child living in the area, from birth to age 17.

Two of the schools — Rosa Parks Elementary and Hoover High School — already had clinics. Monroe Clark’s clinic opened last year and Central Elementary School in 2010.  At all the health centers, children receive medical care with no co-pay.

“We’re establishing a whole system of care,” said Steven Eldred, with The California Endowment. ”It’s not just a clinic, but schools become a point of entry to a comprehensive safety net of services.”

The health centers at Central and Monroe Clark look just like any other community clinic. Patients can be treated for the flu, minor injuries or a sudden asthma attack. But there is also a focus on preventive services including immunizations, well-baby checkups and education for patients on managing chronic conditions.

“We’re trying to be proactive rather than be reactive. Once you have a disease, you have to respond and treat, but what we’re trying to do is prevent disease,” said Dorothy Zirkle, director of health services for Price Charities.

Doctors and nurses team with a school nurse, who acts as a care coordinator for ailing students.

In a community like City Heights, where a large portion of the population are immigrants and refugees, the school nurse is a trusted figure who can help families navigate the health care system, according to Zirkle.

The centers become a medical home for the students and their siblings.

“You’re able to invest more on patients, and you get to see them back,“ said KT Helgesen, a nurse practitioner with La Maestra Community Health Centers. “It helps build that credibility and that professional relationship with them. “

Patients also tap into mental health resources. If a nurse practitioner suspects a stomach ache or headache is related to an emotional issue, such as a troubled home life, the child is referred to a psychologist.

“Having a coordinated school health program … is about making sure a child has all aspects of their lives positively impacted,” said Andrea Karp, a psychologist with Mid-City Community Clinic.

Part of that coordinated approach includes nutrition education. A nutritionist comes to Central once a week to talk with overweight and underweight children — as well as their families — about food and proper exercise.  At Monroe Clark Middle School, the team works with children who are obese by checking on them on a monthly basis.

Donna Magden, a school nurse at Monroe Clark, said just the presence of the clinics has made a difference.

“I think everybody is just more aware of wellness and health by having the clinic on site,” she said.

The health centers are already making an impact, advocates say. They say that attendance is up at Central since its center opened in 2010 because kids do not have to skip classes to see a doctor and instead can get immediate medical care for minor issues at the school.

“The child spends less time missing school and spends a lot more time in the classroom,” said Helgesen.

Putting health clinics at schools is not a new phenomenon. But their role as a safety net in some communities is growing.

In late 2012, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced  the release of $80 million to school-based health center programs across the country. An additional clinic will be added within the 13-school cluster in City Heights by the end of 2013.

Original story published here.

Long known as one of the most violent cities in California, Oakland is taking a novel step to try to reduce crime: empowering children to train one another in violence prevention.

A non-profit program trains high school students and then deploys them to middle schools in the city to talk to younger students about guns, gangs and unhealthy relationships. The hope is that a message of non-violence will have more impact coming from fellow teens.

Teens on Target is an initiative led by the Oakland-based group, Youth Alive! Each year, 30 students at Castlemont Community of Small Schools study violence prevention before fanning out around the city to spread their gospel.

On a recent afternoon, students in an East Oakland classroom flipped through magazines searching for words to snip out of the pages. They cut out the words “Survival Guide,” “Beautiful,” and “50 reasons to have hope,” ready to be put into a collage. The idea was to find the right words and images to describe what they had learned over the past year.

In a city that consistently ranks high in homicides and violent crimes – there were 103 murders in Oakland in 2011, an increase from 90 the previous year – Teens on Target is one effort that advocates say is helping curb violence through education, advocacy and community building.

“(In the classroom), kids usually talk about history, math,” said Caheri Gutierrez, a violence prevention educator with Teens on Target. “We come in and we give them a space to talk about real stuff, real issues that are going on.”

In the first semester, participants delve into what causes violence, listen to speakers who have lost loved ones and talk about the city’s crime statistics. The teens also are trained in public speaking and encouraged to examine how violence has affected their lives.

During the second part of the school year, the teens move out to middle schools to hold workshops about the different types of violence and ways to prevent it.

It’s a win-win for all students involved, advocates say. The high school students, who are compensated with a small stipend, gain professional and development skills, as well as self-confidence.

“Once you’re in front of the kids, they’re all listening to you, so that makes me feel like I’m a good influence,” said Marianne Williams, a junior with Teens on Target. “No matter what’s going on at home, no matter what’s going on at school, it’s something I can look forward to doing, and you feel good.”

Meanwhile, the middle schoolers are more apt to take in the message of staying away from guns, gangs and drugs when it comes from older peers.

“Middle school is the point at which kids decide what they’re going to be like in high school,” said Jennifer Almendarez, a junior. “It’s more likely they’ll listen to you because you’re actually in high school … you’re not just another adult pushing them around.”

Teens on Target was established in 1989 and has been recognized by both national and local leaders. It’s one of the three components of Youth Alive!

Since the early 1990s, Teens on Target has trained as many 830 students and presented the curriculum to more than 40,000 young people in Oakland and Los Angeles.

Demetria Huntsman, program coordinator for Teens on Target, said many of the students have experienced trauma in their lives but aren’t comfortable sharing that trauma, identifying it and seeking help.

She said students learn about decision-making and ways to alter behaviors – for example, staying away from people who carry guns – in order to stay safe.

“Anytime you hang out with anybody carrying a gun you are three times more likely to be injured by a gun. Period. That’s a statistical fact,” Huntsman said. “That statistic doesn’t say you love this person any less…but it is a true fact, and so now you have to make healthy decisions based off of that statistic.”

The high-schoolers also use their own stories to get the message across.

Briana Dunn, a senior and participant of Teens on Target, is a victim of gun violence. At the beginning of the academic year, while waiting for a bus after school, she was shot in the foot. Another boy, the primary target of the shooting, was also injured.

“I’ve seen violence in movies before but I never thought I would be in that position,” Dunn said.

Recovery is ongoing for Dunn. At nights, when she hears gunshots in the distance, her anxieties come back and it brings her to the moment when the bullet hit. But she says being part of Teens on Target and telling her story to middle schoolers has made her deal with the trauma.

Overall homicide rates declined in Oakland between 2007 and 2010. But 2011 saw a spike in murders compared to the previous year. Out of the 103 homicides in the city last year, about half of the victims were under 25 years old. Nearly all of those incidents involved a firearm.

What made 2011 particularly tragic were three instances in which the shooting victims included kids under five years old. The deaths sparked outrage within the community. They also became a part of discussions within Teens on Target.

“We’re not in a bubble of this violence prevention curriculum, we are really conscious of and are focused on (what’s going on) in the community,” Huntsman said.

The root cause of violence in the city, especially acute in the West and East Oakland neighborhoods, is hard to pinpoint, advocates say.

Huntsman said many of the high school and middle school students she talks to have stories of loved ones being shot or family members becoming victims of violent crimes. But the most disturbing of these stories are ones about how easy it is for kids to access guns.

“If you ask them who in here can get a gun, in five minutes, all of them will raise their hands,” she said. “It’s a reality that lets us know how prevalent weapons are.”

That prevalence is what Teens on Target is trying to fight against.

“To them, that’s just the way it is,” Huntsman said. “Once you educated them on all of these different areas of violence, they definitely become connected to the root causes and see that those causes really can be changed. It may not happen in their lifetime, it might take more work than they might have perceived, but it is possible.”

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