Report warns of grim future for California's kids
Stockton Record 1/3/07
In the California Report Card: The State of the State’s Children, the nonprofit Children Now organization assigns letter grades to factors affecting the lives of children.
“If we don’t start making substantial policy changes, we could have a generation of kids who are worse off than their parents were,” said Theresa Garcia, vice president of California policy for Children Now.
To determine letter grades for its 2006-07 report card, Children Now analyzed data on students’ standardized-test scores, families’ access to health insurance, children’s enrollment in preschool and a range of other issues.
In San Joaquin County, advocates and parents said improving the lives of kids means strengthening support for their families.
“I think what’s most important is the bonding and attachment with parents, that children feel safe and secure with their parents,” said Lani Schiff-Ross, program coordinator for First 5 San Joaquin. The agency, funded through the state’s tobacco tax, supports programs for children 5 and younger. “That’s not to say that life is not hard. That doesn’t mean kids won’t struggle. … But knowing they’re still with their parents, that their parents love them, helps.”
Children Now graded California C-minus for education and B-minus for health. For overall family well-being, the state received a D-plus.
Poverty — just over half of San Joaquin County schoolchildren qualify for free or reduced-price lunches because of their parents’ low incomes — can make it difficult for parents to afford quality food, child care and other basics, Garcia said.
“No matter how much you make,” Stockton mother Traynea Talton said, “it never seems to be enough.”
Talton said she worries about having enough money to buy diapers and food for her 15-month-old son.
“It’s a challenge, then, for families to be able to afford any of the real necessities,” Garcia said. “Forget the luxuries.”
First 5, Schiff-Ross said, supports programs that help parents — including economically struggling parents — improve the health and well-being of their young children.
“Parents are the child’s first and best teacher,” she said. “We equip parents with an understanding of child development, finding resources around the house. … Not everyone has to go to stores to buy expensive toys.”
Support for families also can help prevent child abuse and neglect, Schiff-Ross and other officials said.
According to Children Now’s report card, the number of substantiated child-abuse reports in the state declined about 3 percent from 2003 to 2005.
In San Joaquin County, rates of child abuse and neglect have remained steady in recent years, even as the county has grown, said Joe Chelli, director of the county’s Human Services Agency.
Working with families in which children are at risk of child abuse has helped prevent the number of abuse cases from increasing, Chelli said.
“Many of the families have multiple issues they’re dealing with,” he said. “It could be parenting skills, stable housing. It could be drug abuse.”
Such families can be referred for counseling or other services that eventually can protect children’s safety, said David Erb, who oversees children’s services for the HSA.
“If we can get to these families early … maybe we can provide some assistance so that they don’t end up in the foster-care system.”
Linda Mascarenas, executive director of the Stockton-based Center for Positive Prevention Alternatives, which provides shelter, counseling and other services for homeless and runaway teens as well as programs for families, praised community-based efforts to assist parents in improving the prospects for their children.
“They’re trying to bring back a community feeling, that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ thing,” Mascarenas said. Talton said San Joaquin County doesn’t always seem to be a community that supports its families.
“You don’t walk around and see it all the time,” she said. But, she said, sometimes you do. Recently, Talton said, she saw a group of mothers gathered near Weber Point, talking and playing with their children. “That kind of thing can help you sometimes,” she said.
On the Web
Children Now's report, California Report Card: The State of the State's
Children, is available at www.childrennow.org/ reportcard.