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November 2018 Newsletter

Newsletter

Upcoming SMC Youth Commission RFP! 
San Mateo County Youth Commission Request for Proposal will be released December 5, 2018! San Mateo County Health will be seeking proposals for a provider with experience in youth development and a commitment to supporting the well-being of all youth in San Mateo County. For more information, read here.

Health Equity Now! – Says the Largest Public Health Professional Association 
The American Public Health Association (APHA) focused its 2018 annual conference on Health Equity and made a point to focus on racial health equity as a critical priority for the profession. The opening plenary featured Dr. David Williams from Harvard, who has developed pivotal research on “how racism makes us sick.” This dynamic and well-respected professor shares some of his research in plain language in this TED talkRead more…

Items to include in this newsletter

Staff Perspective Maeve Johnston

Youth Speak! Amplifying Voices from the Community Collaboration for Children’s Success

“Family therapy brought me closer to my dad,” says an incarcerated youth at San Mateo County’s Youth Services Center. “I was never as close to my dad as I am now.” We’re discussing what would have made a difference for him—the supports and barriers along his path, which for most of the last two years has taken him in and out of this detention facility. Access to family therapy and a supportive parole officer has been stabilizing since he has been incarcerated, and he pauses to consider the earlier supports that could have made a difference.

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Supporting Children and Youth in Daly City 

On November 5, Daly City kicked off its Community Collaboration for Children’s Success planning process in the cozy space of Daly City Partnership’s facility Our Second Home. A diverse group gathered to discuss the unique assets and challenges in Daly City and began to lay the groundwork for the initiative, identifying possible community champions and data collection strategies.
 

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Continued Support for Restorative Justice Practices in Schools

The San Mateo County School Wellness Alliance is planning to focus the 2018-19 school year meetings on supporting implementation of restorative justice practices. The SWA will be working with districts that have already received training on restorative justice practices to ensure staff are comfortable implementing the strategies that they have learned. Stay tuned for more information on our next meeting in early 2019.

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Learning Beyond the Classroom  

Garden-based education is an important part of the work we support through Get Healthy SMC. One of our key partners supporting this work is The HEAL Project. The Heal Project manages the San Mateo County School Farm and provides students from across the county with opportunity to get their hands dirty on a working farm through their field-trips that include on-farm education. Over the last year The HEAL Project hosted 2,451 students from 30 schools at the County School Farm.

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Supporting Daly City Entrepreneurs 

Get Healthy San Mateo County recently partnered with the City of Daly City and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights to host a free business law basics workshop at City Hall. Entrepreneurs were able to learn about topics such as intellectual property and choosing a business entity from options such as sole proprietorships, limited partnerships or corporations.

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Ask Your Doctor to Prescribe Outdoor Time 

The health benefits of spending time in nature are well documented. The Park Prescription (Park Rx) program builds on the power of a doctor’s recommendations to encourage patients to spend more time in nature to improve their health. Physicians at the San Mateo Medical Center and the Ravenswood Clinic are working to encourage patients and their families to spend more time at local and regional parks.

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Anticipating Repairs Costs in Unpermitted Garage Conversions

Our Get Healthy SMC partner, Rebuilding Together Peninsula (RTP) began renovations on one of four red-tagged garage conversions that had many building and fire code violations and expects to bring the unit up to code as a permitted bedroom by Thanksgiving. Through this pilot project, RTP is finding that what triggered the initial code enforcement violation is minor compared to major structural issues or health hazards uncovered when the units are properly converted in compliance with local planning, building, and fire codes.