© 2025 First 5 Center for Children’s Policy. All rights reserved.
Blog Post
Jaren Gaither • Aug 22, 2024
Infants, toddlers, and young children have unique mental health needs compared to their older counterparts.
Blog Post
Jaren Gaither • Mar 11, 2024
With tax season approaching, it is important to highlight the programs that help lower income families with young children receive much needed financial assistance.
Blog Post
Jaren Gaither • Aug 30, 2023
On August 4, 2023, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first pill for postpartum depression (PPD), marking a significant milestone in treating a condition that affects one in five California women.
Blog Post
Kathryn Margolis • Nov 10, 2022
California has created a dyadic services Medi-Cal benefit effective January 2023. The dyadic services benefit allows Medi-Cal to cover behavioral health wellness visits that focus on the individual child and their surrounding environment, including caregiver wellness, all within the context of the child’s medical appointment.
Blog Post
Pradeep Gidwani, MD • Ruth P. Newton, PhD • Sep 8, 2021
Individual therapy approaches cannot capture the complexity involved as parent, baby, their relationship, their family system, and the culture they are in, all interact. Dyadic therapy, where parent and infant/young child are treated together, addresses all levels of these interacting factors.
Blog Post
Jul 19, 2021
Among the many important investments in this year’s state budget, California’s new dyadic care benefit in the Medi-Cal program is particularly significant.
Blog Post
Kathryn Margolis • Jun 9, 2021
Dyadic care models like HealthySteps provide important support to families with young children. Such care is particularly important in this pandemic- recovery time, which exacerbated mental health concerns, family stress, isolation, and income insecurity, particularly for BIPOC families who already face health inequity due to structural racism and oppression.
Blog Post
Sarah Crow • Christina Altmayer • Mar 30, 2021
Revamping Medicaid policies to improve young children’s social and emotional health and address health care inequities is particularly critical in California, where over half of children ages 0 to 5 have Medicaid coverage (known as Medi-Cal, in California), and two-thirds are children of color.
Blog Post
Mar 29, 2021
The time to prepare is now. California can take several steps to address mental and behavioral health concerns of young children ages 0 to 5, their parents, and child care providers over the next year to reduce adverse childhood experiences and build resilience.
Blog Post
Oct 1, 2020
The First 5 Association of California submitted a response to the Department of Health Care Services on its procurement process for managed care plans to serve the Medi-Cal population with recommendations designed to improve health outcomes for children and provide care with a whole-child, whole-family approach. The following provides an overview of the Association's response.
© 2025 First 5 Center for Children’s Policy. All rights reserved.