The COVID-19 pandemic is severely affecting children and families, and the life-changing programs that serve them. With the forced closures of schools and community centers, children and families who rely on programs that provide services for academic, cultural, emotional, and mental support no longer have access to them. 
 
The loss of these vital and life-changing support systems in youths’ daily lives is devastating and will have traumatic effects on their quality of life. According to a 2018 study, the estimated economic burden resulting from productivity losses for just one child that underwent abuse and trauma would be $902,000, and if conditions resulted in fatalities the estimated cost would be $18 million per child. 
 
In Riverside and San Bernardino counties alone, about 50% of households with 1-3 children have and are currently experiencing emotionally and physically harmful experiences.
 
We need you to CALL ON YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS NOW: Share with and help them support A Hand Up, Not A Handout as they navigate the coronavirus relief legislation!
 
A Hand Up, Not A Handout is a public-private partnership that supports at-risk and low-income youth to receive music and art therapy coupled with wrap-around services through virtual wellness programs as COVID-19 prevails. This specific budget request: 
 
·      Is a transformative public-private partnership that is the next step to addressing that trauma and positively changing the lives of those impacted.
 
·      Is the key to addressing the health and economic disparities that the children in the Inland Empire face by creating opportunities that will allow them to heal, learn, and thrive.
 
·      Will expose youth to the beneficial healing effects of music therapy, provide youth with the necessary skills that will help build resilience against adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s), and provide them with career opportunities.
 
·      Will show the beneficial impact art and music therapy programs have on youth and how they can reverse the effects of adverse childhood experiences, thereby decreasing the likelihood of the need for medical services, increasing lifespan, and creating economic opportunities for underserved children.
 
·      Will lead to improved academic performance, reduced rates of truancy, reduced juvenile crimes, reduced rates of substance abuse, increased competence in the arts, increased skill sets in goal setting, financial literacy and personal, development, increased self-confidence, and self-esteem, increased civic engagement, increased ability to handle stress and improved decision making.

.     A Hand Up, Not A Handout is the solution to saving our youth and helping reverse the devastating effects COVID-19 created. It will allocate $1 million of state funding for Virtual Wellness Programs in 2 counties: San Bernardino County and Riverside County.  
 
Tell our elected officials to support this budgetary ask, to not only change the lives of youths for the better but to save them. THE TIME IS NOW to call on them to advocate for youth and families.