Guest Blog: Keeping Families Connected Is Important: Guide to Jail Visiting in KY Shows How to Take Action

By Judith Jennings Find the Keeping Families Connected: A Guide to Keeping Families Connected at www.LFJA502.org.  High-quality jail visiting programs are urgently needed to reduce harms to children and families and humanize local criminal legal systems. Overcrowding in county jails in Kentucky and across the nation is well known. Yet, as families with incarcerated loved ones know all too well, incarceration negatively impacts parents, children, and communities, and staying connected is often challenging.  Kentucky has [...]

By |2023-06-20T17:51:38-04:00June 20th, 2023|Blog, Child Welfare & Safety, Justice, Race Equity|

Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, and Fuel Stops

Greetings, from the road! The Sowing Resilience: A Bloom Kentucky Listening Tour is about halfway complete. We are making 19 stops in total across every region in Kentucky. We have powerful partners in every region that have been integral to the success of this Listening Tour series.  Much like the motto used by the fabled Dillon Panthers in the hit TV show Friday Night Lights, our Kentucky Youth Advocates team members are focused and operating [...]

Sowing Resilience with Bloom Kentucky

What does Bloom Kentucky and Mickey Mouse have in common this summer? They are both ALL EARS. As soon as the gavel fell for the 2023 state legislative session, Bloom Kentucky already had a plan to get advocates excited about 2024. Kentucky Youth Advocates and Bloom Kentucky want to hear from you!   During May and June 2023, we’re hosting regionally-based listening sessions across the Commonwealth to bring local advocates and leaders together to identify strategies [...]

The Opioid Settlement and Impact for Kentucky Kids

“Hope blooms when the time is ready.” – Debasish Mridha After seeing waves of the opioid epidemic pass through Kentucky since the late 1990s, Kentucky is ready and well-equipped  to turn the tide. Due to actions taken by all three branches of Kentucky’s government, and major efforts by the Attorney General’s office specifically, we are set to see hundreds of millions of dollars come directly to Kentucky from the opioid settlement. With investments and persistence, [...]

KYGA23: Impacts for Kids and Families

The actions of the General Assembly during the 2023 legislative session confounded us at times. While we certainly don’t agree with any legislator 100% of the time, there are still ways we can find common ground and at the very least agree on a process. In the juvenile justice realm – we’ll go into bill details below – members of the House and Senate demonstrated thoughtful and careful consideration. The much debated House Bill 3 [...]

Statement on Passage of SB 135 by the Kentucky Senate

Contact: Mara Powell mpowell@kyyouth.org Statement from Dr. Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates LOUISVILLE, KY – Parents need to be healthy, have access to the care and services they need, and have the necessary resources to meet basic needs throughout their pregnancy, birth, and after welcoming a new child. And the reality is, at least 1 in 8 women experience postpartum depression, which impacts the growth and development of their baby, too. Effectively [...]

Bloom Kentucky Announces 2023 State Policy Priorities

On your mark… Get set… GO! The 2023 Kentucky General Assembly is underway, and advocates from across the Commonwealth are sprinting into action to help improve outcomes for kids and families. Bloom Kentucky recently released its 2023 state policy priorities to help advocates in their race to the finish line.  Bloom Kentucky is a collaborative initiative of grantmaking organizations from across the Commonwealth focused on statewide policy changes and budget investments that aim to prevent [...]

By |2023-01-25T14:17:03-05:00January 25th, 2023|Blog, Bloom Kentucky|

Bloom Community Spotlight: GreenHouse17

To help prevent and mitigate childhood adversity, many on-the-ground community partners are hard at work providing needed resources and support to Kentucky kids and families. The Bloom Community Spotlight blog series highlights the important work being done by Bloom Kentucky community partners throughout the Commonwealth. It’s about time to talk more about the effects of domestic violence on children By GreenHouse17 staff For too many years, domestic violence has remained a hidden private matter. National [...]

By |2022-11-10T14:02:59-05:00October 24th, 2022|Blog, Bloom Kentucky, Child Welfare & Safety|

Bloom Community Spotlight: The Morton Center

To help prevent and mitigate childhood adversity, many on-the-ground community partners are hard at work providing needed resources and support to Kentucky kids and families. The Bloom Community Spotlight blog series highlights the important work being done by Bloom Kentucky community partners throughout the Commonwealth. By Priscilla McIntosh, The Morton Center, Inc. Louisville, KY Photo Credit: The Morton Center I have two children, 13 and 10-year-old daughters.  As a mom, the last two+ [...]

Policies to Address the Pair of ACEs

This week on our Advocate Virtual Forum we continue the discussion about the Bloom Kentucky initiative and addressing Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adverse Childhood Environments. State Representatives Kim Moser and Nima Kulkarni join the forum to share their insights on policy and state budget priorities in the 2022 General Assembly that could prevent and mitigate childhood trauma. Learn more about Bloom Kentucky at BloomKentucky.org, and in our previous Making Kids Count podcast episode from [...]

By |2021-08-19T08:44:49-04:00August 19th, 2021|Bloom Kentucky, Podcast|
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