All Children Thrive - California

Our Approach

Our Approach

All Children Thrive works with cities to focus on solutions that prevent and heal adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and promote child and family wellbeing. 

Source: Zachary Drucker, The Gender Spectrum Collection

Source: Zachary Drucker, The Gender Spectrum Collection

Community Action Areas

ACT focuses on five main priorities, known as Community Action Areas, that can improve child and youth wellbeing in California. Some communities have also chosen to expand existing mental health and wellness services to bolster their efforts. 

“Promoting Healthy Child Development” centers on early childhood trauma as a risk factor for children and youth development as it relates to educational attainment, mental health, behavioral, social and physical well-being.

Healthy development is critical to child and youth well-being and a community’s broader health. By meeting developmental needs early in life, we can work together to dismantle the systems that lead to hardship, lack of opportunity, and resource gaps to ensure your community—including our children and youth—can thrive. We can help you to promote initiatives such as improving the built environment or the settings in which children live, play, and grow.

“Creating Protective Environments” focuses on methods to build protective environments for youth to prevent trauma and other adverse experiences before they occur.

Protective environments are settings that do not harm but rather help and enhance communities. Environments that are inclusive, safe, and trauma-informed are important to promoting healthy child development. By focusing on efforts such as mandated surveys measuring adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and establishing crisis response teams prepared to respond to mental health crises, everyone can feel enveloped by a community that protects and cares about them. Whether you wish to promote restorative justice practices in schools or ensure domestic violence training for first responders, All Children Thrive can help guide your conversations between city officials and community members to shape healthy, safe environments that allow youth to thrive.

“Youth Development and Civic Engagement” embraces the idea that youth are knowledgeable leaders in the community and are critical to creating change.

Children and youth are our community’s future leaders. Their ability to thrive is directly related to the current and future well-being of our communities. All Children Thrive creates youth advisory boards and promotes activities that center youth voices and provide space for youth to voice their opinions about the future they would like to see. ACT can help you assess the needs in your community, identify who is being left out, and create opportunities that support all youth.

“Strengthening Economic Supports for Children and Families” is dedicated to creating economic supports to build a stronger base for families and communities.

Economic support like low-interest financial services and public ownership opportunities can help families to escape debt and build wealth to protect their future. By focusing on legislation that sets a living wage, provides access to job opportunities for people who were formally incarcerated, and innovations to increase economic opportunity, we can build a stronger economic base for our families and communities. 

“Access to Safe and Stable Housing” is about making affordable housing available to everyone.

No child should have to worry about where they will rest their head at night. Yet child homelessness and housing instability continue to be major public health issues for too many California families. A child in temporary or unstable housing is more likely to experience emotional or behavioral challenges, increasing their risk for serious health problems. ACT will invest in you and your proposals to implement amended zoning rules, affordable housing, and other methods promoting access to safe and stable housing in your community.