In February, CDF-CA and others joined Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) at a press conference to announce the introduction of AB 875 to reestablish “Healthy Start.” Healthy Start, established in 1991 with bipartisan support, was a historic program that gave seed money grants to Local Education Agencies and community partners to address the social determinants of health and comprehensively meet the needs of students and their families. The program, which was massively defunded in 2002 as a result of a recession, helped connect children and families to services related to: dental health, mental health, vision, academic support, job training, violence intervention and prevention, parenting education, and more. Healthy Start 2.0 will build on the positive community-level impacts of the original program by integrating child- and family-facing service systems and emphasizing evidence-based approaches to program access and effectiveness, especially for high-need communities.
