Sacramento Head Start Alumni Association

Connect for Kids Weekly - August 4, 2003

Aug 05, 2003

NEW ON CONNECTFORKIDS.ORG
**An Idea with Legs
**A Toolkit for Funding
**WireTap: "Youth in Pursuit of the Dirty Truth"

PROTECTING CHILDREN'S HEALTH
**Preserving Recent Progress on Health Coverage for Children and Families: New Tensions Emerge
**Children's Insurance Coverage and Service Use Improves
**Medicaid and Child Health Care Fact Sheets
**Keeping Health in Head Start: Lessons Learned from Dental Care
** The Association of the School Food Environment with Dietary Behaviors of Young Adolescents
**The Paradox of Hunger and Obesity in America

SPOTLIGHT ON GIRLS
**A Win for American Girls and Women: Title IX
**In the Spotlight: Family Violence Resources
**Girls and the Juvenile Justice System

GOOD NEWS THE PUBLIC DOESN'T KNOW
**Trends in the Well-Being of America's Children 2002
**How Children Are Doing: The Mismatch Between Public Perception and Statistical Reality
** Perceptions and Misperceptions of America's Children
**Framing Youth

RESOURCES FOR COMMUNITY BUILDING
**The Cost Of A Volunteer: What It Takes To Provide A Quality Volunteer Experience
**August Events

MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES FOR KIDS
**Researching Medication for Pediatric Depression
**Several Factors Influence the Placement of Children Solely to Obtain Mental Health Services

CHILD CARE NEWS
**Child Care Links to Problem Behaviors
**Child Care Quality Matters: How Conclusions May Vary with Context
**New Child Care Resources Are Needed

BACK TO SCHOOL -- YES, ALREADY
**Covering Kids Launches Back to School Initiative
**PTA Back-to-School Planning Tools
**Is Your School's Physical Education Program Ready to Prevent Obesity?

FEDERAL DECISIONS AND LOW-WAGE FAMILIES
**Will Federal Tax Cuts Harm America's Children?
**Boom Times a Bust: Declining Employment among Less-Educated Young Men
**Banking the Poor

**Block Grant Mania: A Way to Cut Aid to the Working Poor?
**Ending the Safety Net as We Know It? Assessing the New Federal Block Grant Proposals
**Children Bear Brunt of Federal Tax Cuts
**Congress Recesses with Many Decisions Pending

IDENTIFYING WHAT WORKS FOR KIDS IN NEED
**CASASTART Proves Its Worth

FOCUS ON THE STATES

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NEW ON CONNECTFORKIDS.ORG

**An Idea with Legs
Parents looking for a safe and healthy way to get kids to school might want to consider this option: a bus that wears sneakers. Robert Capriccioso explores how some communities have found ways to leave the mini-van behind this school year.
http://www.connectforkids.org/benton_topics1544/benton_topics_show.htm?doc_id=187056

**A Toolkit for Funding
Want to build a playground for your local school or maybe start an after-school program? Good ideas need funding to become reality. Connect for Kids has a toolkit to help you get started.
http://www.connectforkids.org/resources3139/resources_show.htm?doc_id=45947

**WireTap: "Youth in Pursuit of the Dirty Truth"
This August, we're going to shine a spotlight on Web sites that put the words and work of young people center stage. This week, meet WireTap, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that bills itself as "the independent information source by and for socially conscious youth." WireTap posts a weekly on-line magazine; acts as a portal to other youth media sites; and hosts a gallery of artwork and poetry by young people. Here's a story from the June 19, 2003 edition.
http://www.connectforkids.org/benton_topics1544/benton_topics_show.htm?doc_id=187060


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PROTECTING CHILDREN'S HEALTH

**Preserving Recent Progress on Health Coverage for Children and Families: New Tensions Emerge
Despite serious state budget shortfalls, the Kaiser Commission reports that health coverage programs for low-income children were protected from severe cuts in most states -- but momentum to simplify enrollment procedures to reach more children has started to reverse, and several states were forced to cut efforts to expand parental eligibility. (See the top report in the list.)
http://www.kff.org/content/2003/20030729

**Children's Insurance Coverage and Service Use Improves
Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) contributed to a dramatic decline in the number of uninsured children between 1999 and 2002, with improvements concentrated among low-income children, according to Urban Institute's latest Snapshots of America's Families.
http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?NavMenuID=24&template=/TaggedContent/ViewPublication.cfm&PublicationID=8496

**Medicaid and Child Health Care Fact Sheets
More than half of Medicaid recipients are children -- the program covers 24.2 million kids. As federal and state lawmakers are reviewing Medicaid costs and services, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the National Association of Children's Hospitals have issued updated state-by-state fact sheets on enrollment, eligibility, cost and other issues to show how the program serves children.
http://www.aap.org/advocacy/washing/elections/med_factsheet_pub.htm

**Keeping Health in Head Start: Lessons Learned from Dental Care
Dental care is one of the Head Start services that could be threatened if the program were "block granted" -- turned into a fixed grant from the fed to the states -- argues the Children's Dental Health Project. (Scroll down for this report.)
http://www.cdhp.org

** The Association of the School Food Environment with Dietary Behaviors of Young Adolescents
Schools can encourage healthier eating among young adolescents by reducing a la carte availability and snack vending machines, which were associated with consuming more fat and eating fewer fruits, according to research in the American Journal of Public Health. A big surprise: serving French fries was positively associated with teens eating more fruits and vegetables. (The Abstract alone is available.)
http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/93/7/1168?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&author1=Kubik&searchid=1059770936378_1575&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&fdate=1/1/2002&journalcode=ajph

**The Paradox of Hunger and Obesity in America
Hunger and obesity are both public health problems -- and in fact they often occur in the same family, according to the Center on Hunger and Poverty at Brandeis University and the Food Research and Action Center. Rather than cut down on the actual amount of food they buy and eat, families are likely to give up healthier foods that are more expensive in favor of lower-cost foods with higher calories.
http://www.frac.org/html/news/071403hungerandObesity.htm


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SPOTLIGHT ON GIRLS

**A Win for American Girls and Women: Title IX
The National Women's Law Center reports that the U.S. Department of Education's July decision not to ease longstanding Title IX athletics policies is a major victory in protecting a program that gives girls and women greater opportunities to play sports and enjoy the benefits in improved health, reduced teen pregnancy rates and higher high school graduation rates.
http://www.nwlc.org/details.cfm?id=1582?§ion=newsroom

**In the Spotlight: Family Violence Resources
Child abuse expert Dr. Stephen Bavolek explains, "continued maltreatment of children today is primarily the result of poorly trained adults who, in their roles as parents and caretakers, attempt to instill discipline and educate children within the context of the violence they themselves experienced as children." The National Criminal Justice Reference Service has the latest facts and publications on family violence, and programs, grants and funding to assist in its prevention.
http://www.ncjrs.org/family_violence/summary.html

**Girls and the Juvenile Justice System
This five-part series on National Public Radio's All Things Considered is exploring the harsh and difficult realities young girls face in the complex U.S. justice system -- which was designed with boys in mind and is struggling to meet the demands of a new influx of girls.
http://discover.npr.org/features/feature.jhtml?wfId=1360282


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GOOD NEWS THE PUBLIC DOESN'T KNOW

**Trends in the Well-Being of America's Children 2002
The seventh annual report from the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics finds increasing diversity among the child population. The median income for families with children rose to $50,990 in 2001, but two-parent families earn more than three times the average earnings of single-mother families.
http://www.aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/02trends

**How Children Are Doing: The Mismatch Between Public Perception and Statistical Reality
Teen pregnancies are down and youth violent crime rates are at their lowest level in 25 years, yet most of the American public is unaware of these positive trends, according to this Child Trends report. While many American children and youth still face daunting challenges, public ignorance of progress in the 1990s means voters may be less willing to support the policies and programs that helped bring about these successes.
http://www.childtrends.org/n_PublicPerc63003.asp

** Perceptions and Misperceptions of America's Children
The Role of the Print Media Kids' issues rarely make the news, and when they do, coverage in print media is often poor -- especially when it comes to topics like children and welfare, teen pregnancy, or youth violence, according to an Annie E. Casey Foundation review of five major newspapers. The articles often lack the statistical information that could help readers put the problem in context and understand the trends over time.
http://www.aecf.org/kidscount/ohare_paper_on_media_6_26_03_final.pdf

**Framing Youth
The misperception of America's children is not brand-new. In his 2000 book, Framing Youth, author Mike Males turned a critical eye on the American media's inaccurate assertion that kids today are more violent, drugged-out and reckless than ever. Connect for Kids reviewed the book when it first came out; its message is still relevant.
http://www.connectforkids.org/benton_reviews1560/benton_reviews_show.htm?doc_id=24737


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RESOURCES FOR COMMUNITY BUILDING

**The Cost Of A Volunteer: What It Takes To Provide A Quality Volunteer Experience
This Grantmaker Forum On Community and National Service report draws on an analysis of 21 volunteer programs nationwide to find out what it really takes to provide high quality volunteer experience.
http://www.gfcns.org

**August Events
August is National Immunization Awareness month and Back to School month. It includes the anniversaries of the 19th amendment and the Family and Medical Leave Act. Find out more about events that matter for families and kids in the Celebrating Families calendar.
http://www.celebratingfamilies.org


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MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES FOR KIDS

**Researching Medication for Pediatric Depression
Depression in children is real -- as many as five percent of kids and teens may suffer from the loss of energy, poor concentration, feelings of hopelessness, decreased interest in activities, low self-esteem, extreme sensitivity to rejection or failure and increased irritability or hostility that are the characteristics of depression. Clinical Research Associates (CRA) has a database of resources and agencies by state. CRA is seeking qualified participants for a study of the safety and effectiveness of an investigational SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) medication. For information, contact 800-664-5099.
http://www.clinicaltrials.com/cons/cons_test.asp?illness_id=105&State=ALL&image.x=12&image.y=13

**Several Factors Influence the Placement of Children Solely to Obtain Mental Health Services
This General Accounting Office report concludes that in fiscal year 2001, parents placed over 12,700 children in child welfare or juvenile justice systems so they could receive mental health services. Many are adolescents with multiple problems and behaviors that threaten the safety of themselves or others. Agencies say reducing costs, improving access and expanding the range of mental health services for teens could help reduce the need for some child welfare or juvenile justice placements.
http://www.gao.gov/highlights/d03865thigh.pdf


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CHILD CARE NEWS

**Child Care Links to Problem Behaviors
It's big news, the research from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development that finds the more hours children spend in child care from birth to age four and a half, the more parents and caregivers report problem behaviors like arguing, boasting, bullying or fighting. But hidden from the headlines is the fine print: the strongest predictor of children?’s behavior is the degree to which a mother is sensitive to her child?’s moods, needs, interests and capabilities. Quality child care environments with caregivers who can be attentive produce better outcomes than non-quality settings.
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/new/releases/child_care.cfm

**Child Care Quality Matters: How Conclusions May Vary with Context
Does more time spent in child care lead to behavioral problems for young children? Mathematica researchers analyzed data from different cultures and contexts to answer this question -- and that the more time infants and toddlers spent in Head Start programs, the fewer their behavior problems and the greater their intellectual and language development. The paper is available in the print edition of the July/August issue of Child Development.
http://www.srcd.org/journals/cdev/toc_list2.cfm?Journal=CD-PREPUB

**New Child Care Resources Are Needed
Hundreds of thousands of children in welfare-to-work and low-wage working families could lose access to child care assistance if child care funding is not increased in the reauthorization of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) welfare bill, according to the Center on Law and Social Policy and Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
http://www.clasp.org/DMS/Documents/1058295869.52/7-15-03tanf.pdf


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BACK TO SCHOOL -- YES, ALREADY

**Covering Kids Launches Back to School Initiative
The gains in health coverage for children has been dramatic, but there are still millions of children without coverage who are eligible for Medicaid or SCHIP. The Covering Kids initiative has fact sheets, local networks and other resources to help communities reach the goal of ensuring health insurance for all children.
http://www.coveringkids.org/press/

**PTA Back-to-School Planning Tools
The school year may have just ended in many communities, but it's not too early to start planning for back-to-school events. The National PTA has materials to help plan events and recruit members.
http://www.pta.org/parentinvolvement/bts/index.asp

**Is Your School's Physical Education Program Ready to Prevent Obesity?
Concerned about rising obesity rates among children, many parents view daily activity as key to optimal health. The National Association of Sport and Physical Education has ten quick questions educators and parents can use to help schools improve their physical education programs.
http://www.aahperd.org/naspe/template.cfm?template=prevent.html


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FEDERAL DECISIONS AND LOW-WAGE FAMILIES

**Will Federal Tax Cuts Harm America's Children?
The Every Child Matters Education Fund finds that Congress' recent budget and tax cut choices will result in decreased federal investments in services for children for years to come, and saddle the next generation with unprecedented debt. In most states, federal funding pays for more than half of all health and social service programs for kids -- as this funding drops, child care, after-school, health care, child abuse treatment and other programs face new limits and cuts that threaten recent progress in these areas.
http://www.everychildmatters.org

**Boom Times a Bust: Declining Employment among Less-Educated Young Men
The economic boom of the late 1990s was good for less-educated young women, but not for less-educated young men, whose employment remained stagnant during the decade due to a number of factors -- including the negative impact of dropping wages, child support regulations that discourage formal employment, higher incarceration rates, movement of jobs out of inner cities and employer discrimination. The Center on Law and Social Policy outlines policy responses and alternatives that could raise employment rates for young men.
http://www.clasp.org/DMS/Documents/1058362464.08/Boom_Times.pdf

**Banking the Poor
In many American neighborhoods, commercial bank branches are rare--but check cashing services abound. As a result, low-wage workers pay more to cash their paychecks and more for credit than families with credit cards and mainstream bank accounts. The Brookings Institution finds that limited access to the banking system undermines poor families' financial stability and imposes costs on the economy as a whole. It recommends that the federal government play a larger role in expanding low-wage families' access to financial services.
http://www.brookings.edu/es/urban/publications/20030715_barr.htm

Summaries of Congressional action are also available from the Coalition on Human Needs.
http://www.chn.org

**Block Grant Mania: A Way to Cut Aid to the Working Poor?
Brookings Institution visiting fellow Margy Waller warns that this year's block grant proposals may be part of a strategy to reduce federal investment in services for working poor families. Turning federally managed funding into a block grant which shifts oversight and administration from the federal government to states, typically ends up in fewer dollars and services for low-wage families.
http://www.brookings.edu/views/op-ed/waller/20030728.htm

**Ending the Safety Net as We Know It? Assessing the New Federal Block Grant Proposals
The 1996 welfare law transformed a safety net for all eligible families into a block grant for states. Now, the Bush administration wants to apply this model to other major anti-poverty programs. The speakers at this Brookings forum discussed what this shift in social policy could mean for states, communities and families around the country.
http://www.brookings.edu/es/urban/speeches/20030613_blockgrants.htm

**Children Bear Brunt of Federal Tax Cuts
Kids' programs are beginning to feel the impact of the sluggish economy and deep cuts in federal and state revenues, says OMBWatch. But the Bush administration's tax and budget policies are going in the wrong direction, forcing the states to cut millions of dollars for child care, children's health care, and preschool and after-school programs.
http://www.ombwatch.org/article/articleview/1703/1/183

**Congress Recesses with Many Decisions Pending
The August Congressional recess has arrived postponing for September final decisions on reshaping Head Start, setting funding for education and child care assistance, restoring refundable child tax credits for minimum-wage families, redefining welfare-to-work requirements in the TANF reauthorization, reauthorizing child nutrition programs and block granting Medicaid. You'll find links to action alerts and updates from child advocacy organizations in Connect for Kids' Action Centers for Child Advocates.
http://www.connectforkids.org/resources3139/resources_show.htm?doc_id=123948


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IDENTIFYING WHAT WORKS FOR KIDS IN NEED

**CASASTART Proves Its Worth
The Promising Practices Network has included CASASTART -- a multi-pronged program to reduce substance abuse and violence among teens -- on its "proven effective" list. The program targets high-risk young adolescents, who receive monetary and non-monetary incentives to participate. Program elements typically include working with local law enforcement to improve neighborhood safety, providing case managers for the teens and their families, providing after-school activities and tutoring assistance and group mentoring programs.
http://www.promisingpractices.net/program.asp?programid=107


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FOCUS ON THE STATES

**SPARK Helps Today's Kids, Tomorrow's Future
Getting kids ready for school -- and schools ready for kids of all abilities -- is the goal of the Kellogg SPARK Initiative, now launching in Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio and Washington, DC. The five-year early childhood programs will use such strategies as seeking early childhood accreditation for kindergarten classrooms; creating partnerships among schools, parents and child care providers; and connecting parents with advocates to help them engage with the schools sooner and more effectively.
http://www.wkkf.org/SPARK

**Progress in the States
Expanding the reach of the Earned Income Tax Credit in Illinois, allowing welfare recipients in Oregon to count college as work, and an at-home infant care program assisting young low-income mothers in Montana are among the victories for families and children cited in this Center for Policy Alternatives round-up of progressive measures enacted in the states in 2003.
http://www.stateaction.org/2003victories.pdf

**High School Graduation Rates Differ by State
A Manhattan Institute state-by-state analysis of on-time graduation rates, which sparked headlines over the incorrect reporting of Houston's drop-out rates, has been revised. The national graduation rate for the class of 1998 was 71 percent. Georgia had the lowest overall graduation rate in the nation (54 percent) and Iowa had the highest (93 percent). Overall, the graduation rate for white students was 78 percent, but it was 56 percent for African-American students and 54 percent for Latino students.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_baeo.htm

**State-by-State News

California
In "School's Out: Who Ate?" California Food Policy Advocates reviews California's persistent child hunger problem, especially during the summer, when kids miss out on free or reduced-price school lunches. Among the recommended policy changes is a proposal to make it easier for community-based sponsors to operate nutrition programs by cutting red tape and feeding children meals and snacks all year round.
http://www.cfpa.net/Summerfood/SummerfoodProgram.htm

Employment is not necessarily a ticket out of poverty, especially for full-time low-wage parents caring for children, finds "Boom, Bust, and Beyond: The State of Working California" from the California Budget Project.
http://www.cbp.org

Colorado
Stateline.org reports that the Centers for Disease Control finds Colorado is the last state in the nation when it comes to getting children vaccinated against diseases such as polio, measles and hepatitis B.
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~53~1545553,00.html

Illinois
Mathematica's "Families on TANF in Illinois" report finds that despite the state's strong work incentive package, only one-third of TANF household heads are meeting federal work requirements. Many welfare-to-work families lack the necessary education and/or report barriers like caring for a family member with health problems or problems with child care and transportation.
http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/PDFs/redirect.asp?strSite=tanfillinois.pdf

Iowa
The Iowa Community Advisory Team program is helping low-income mothers make their case before state and federal lawmakers on improvements to child care assistance and other programs, reports Voices for America's Children in this "Making a Difference" report.
http://www.voicesforamericaschildren.org/Template.cfm?Section=Publications&CONTENTID=2292&TEMPLATE=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm

Maine
The Maine Department of Education has an assessment guide to help school systems develop their local assessment systems to more realistically and deeply measure student achievement, beyond standardized testing.
http://www.state.me.us/education/lsalt/localassess.htm

Texas
Houston schools may be intentionally or unintentionally counting the number of students who drop out of high school, according to a recent audit. (See the July 11, 2003 article, "Questions on Data Cloud Luster of Houston Schools." First-time visitors will need to complete the free registration form.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/11/national/11HOUS.html