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News from the field of Child and Youth Care

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SEPTEMBER 2014

29 SEPTEMBER 2014

USA: The Bair Foundation Champions “Orphan Sunday”

The biblical call to “defend the cause of the fatherless” (Isaiah 1:17) is on hearts and minds of Christians in a way not seen in generations. The national Orphan Sunday campaign led by the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO)has helped stoke this movement to a new intensity, including more than 3,000 local Orphan Sunday events nationwide. As an active member of CAFO, The Bair Foundation Child and Family Ministries will be joining in this effort the first weekend of November, calling Christians to adoption, foster care and global orphan ministry.

The Bair Foundation Child and Family Ministries will be sponsoring Orphan Sunday events in Pennsylvania, Ohio, North and South Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, Oklahoma, Texas and New Mexico. The Bair Foundation is a national organization that has helped children, teens and families for over 47 years. Bair staff from each office will be partnering with their local churches to speak or host other events including small groups and prayer gatherings. These events and presentations celebrate God’s love and help us to answer His call to share the love that He has given to us with these children and teens that are so in need. Support Bair and their mission by coming to Orphan Sunday to open your heart and mind by learning more about what you can do to change young lives.

There are more than 400,000 children in the foster system in the U.S. today, with over 100,000 waiting to be adopted. Globally, an estimated 17.8 million children have lost both parents. The Orphan Sunday campaign invites Christians to be God’s answer to these needs. “We set the lonely in families because God set us in His.”

Visit The Bair Foundation online at bair.org to find a list of where representatives will be speaking in your area. If you are interested in partnering with The Bair Foundation on this important day and/or having a representative make a presentation to your church congregation or group, please contact Dorie Alcaro at dalcaro(at)bair(dot)org.

About The Bair Foundation

The Bair Foundation is a national organization that has successfully cared for and treated children, teens and families for over 47 years. With 31 offices in 9 states it offers a myriad of community based services which include Structured Intervention Treatment Foster Care, Traditional Foster Care, Adoption Services, Medically-Needy Foster Care, Independent Living Services, Parent Empowerment Program, B.E.S.T. Program, Wraparound Services, In-Home Services, Assessment Home, and Outpatient Services. The Bair Foundation is accredited by COA (Council on Accreditation) and is a member of The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, Alliance for Children and Families, Christian Alliance for Orphans, and Foster Family-Based Treatment Association.

Press release: PRWeb
24 September 2014

http://www.prweb.com/releases/orphansundaybairministry/christianfostercare/prweb12203729.htm

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26 SEPTEMBER 2014

USA

Remarks by the First Lady at
United Nations Global Education First Initiative

MRS. OBAMA: Good afternoon. It is truly a pleasure and an honor to join you today for the third annual Global Education First Initiative event.

Let me start by thanking Chernor for that just touching, very powerful, beautiful introduction. Let’s give him a round of applause. That was amazing. (Applause.) I do not feel worthy. But I’m very proud of you and all of the other youth advocates for the tremendous work that you all are doing. You make me proud.

I also want to recognize Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson; UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova; U.N. Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown; and, of course, the GEFI Champion Countries and Partners.

But most of all, I want to thank all of you for your visionary work on global education, particularly on the issue I want to discuss today –- an issue which is the focus of my international work as First Lady of the United States -– and that is providing quality education for girls around the world.

Now, we have made tremendous progress on this issue, particularly on primary education. Thanks to leaders like all of you, as of 2012, every developing region in the world had achieved, or was close to achieving, gender parity in primary education. And this is a stunning accomplishment, and we should all be proud of how far we’ve come.

But we shouldn’t be satisfied. Because while the benefits of primary education are real and meaningful, we know that if we truly want to transform girls’ lives, if we truly want to give them the tools to shape their own destinies, then primary education often just isn’t enough.

We know that if we want girls to marry later, raise healthier children, earn good wages, then we need to send them to school through adolescence. But we also know that adolescence marks the critical moment when a girl starts to develop from a child into a woman; when she is first subjected to the norms and prejudices that her society holds around gender. And that is precisely when the issue of quality education truly starts to get hard.

At that point in a girl’s life, it is no longer enough to simply talk about building schools and buying supplies, because when it comes to educating adolescent girls the real challenge isn’t just about resources, it’s about attitudes and beliefs. It’s about whether fathers and mothers think their daughters are as worthy of an education as their sons. It’s about whether communities value young women for their minds, or only for the reproductive and labor capacities of their bodies. It’s also about whether all of us are willing to confront the complex, sensitive issues that keep so many adolescent girls out of school –- issues like early and forced marriage, and genital cutting; issues like domestic violence and human trafficking.

In other words, we cannot talk about quality education for adolescent girls or hope to make meaningful and lasting progress on this issue unless we’re willing to have a much bigger and bolder conversation about how women are viewed and treated in the world today.

Now, as Chernor said, this conversation is deeply personal for me as a woman. I know that I stand before you today because of the people in my life, particularly the men -– men like my father, grandfathers, uncles who valued me, who invested in me from the day I was born; men who pushed me to succeed in school, insisted that I have the same opportunities as my brother, urging me to find a husband who would treat me as an equal.

The issue of secondary education for girls is also personal to me as a mother. And I know that’s true for many of you here today as well. So many of us are parents and grandparents, and who among us would accept our daughters and granddaughters getting only a primary education? Who among us would accept our precious girls being married off to grown men at the age of 12, becoming pregnant at 13, being unable to support themselves financially, confined to a life of dependence, fear and abuse?

None of us in this room would ever dream of accepting that kind of life for our daughters or granddaughters. So why would we accept this for any girl in our country, or any girl on this planet?

To answer this question, all of us -– men and women here in this room and around the world –- we must do some serious self-reflection. We must look inside ourselves and ask, do we truly value women as equals, or do we see them as merely second-class citizens? We must look around at our societies and ask, are we clinging to laws and traditions that serve only to oppress and exclude, or are we working to become more equal, more free?

These are the very questions we are asking ourselves every day here in the United States. Because while we’ve made tremendous progress in areas like college graduation rates and workforce participation, women here are still woefully underrepresented in our government and in the senior ranks of our corporations.

We still struggle with violence against women and harmful cultural norms that tell women how they are expected to look and act. And we still have plenty of work to do here in America to provide a quality education and opportunity for girls and boys, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. But as we consider all the challenges we face in our countries and in countries across the globe, we must also reflect on the tremendous progress we’ve made.

Just think about where we were just 15 years ago on this issue. Back then, if I had told you that in a little over a decade, we would see nearly 56 million more girls going to school, you would have told me I was dreaming. But that is precisely what has happened because of people like all of you. It’s happened because of your fierce devotion to those girls’ promise and your relentless efforts to transform their lives.

And if we truly believe that every girl in every corner of the globe is worthy of an education as our own daughters and granddaughters are, then we need to deepen our commitment to these efforts. We need to make even more commitments and investments like the ones we’re announcing this week –- programs to provide scholarships and hygiene facilities in schools; public awareness campaigns to change attitudes about our girls; efforts to collect data on how girls learn, and so much more.

We also need to fight even harder to ensure that quality education for every child and the empowerment of women and girls are dedicated goals on our Post-2015 Development Agenda -- yes, absolutely. (Applause.) Keeping our girls safe on their way to school, teaching them relevant skills once they’re there, and ensuring they graduate from secondary school -- all of these things must be a part of our agenda. Addressing gender-based violence in all of its forms –- from domestic violence, to genital cutting, to early and forced marriages –- all of that needs to be on the agenda too.

Because girls around the world deserve so much better. They do. They are so eager to learn. And so many of them are sacrificing so much just for the chance to get an education. I’m thinking about girls like Malala. I’m thinking about those brave girls in Nigeria. I’m thinking about all the girls who will never make the headlines who walk hours to school each day, who study late into the night because they are so hungry to fill every last bit of their God-given potential.

If we can show just a tiny fraction of their courage and their commitment, then I know we can give all of our girls an education worthy of their promise. And let me just say this -- in the years and decades ahead, I am so very eager to engage even more deeply with leaders in this room, across the United States and around the world on this issue until every young woman on our planet has the opportunity to learn and grow and thrive.

Thank you very much. God bless.

Press release: The White House, Office of the First Lady

24 September 2014

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/09/24/remarks-first-lady-united-nations-global-education-first-initiative

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25 SEPTEMBER 2014

CANADA

11th Directors of Youth Protection Annual Report – Commitment to children dating back 35 years – In period of tough choices, social investment should be maintained

Thirty-five years ago, in 1979, Quebec emerged as a ground-breaking entity with the enactment of its Youth Protection Act (YPA) – a critical turning point that recognized children as full and equal citizens. The YPA stipulated the appointment of a Director of Youth Protection (DYP) in every region of Quebec, who would be responsible for protecting all the children in his or her territory – a role that DYPs continue to play today with just as much vigour as in those early days.

In presenting their 11th annual report, the Directors of Youth Protection aim to stress the pressing need to ensure that children remain the top priority even as Quebec faces some tough financial choices.

Since 2010, the number of signalements reported has significantly increased (17,3%) province-wide, while institutions offering services to vulnerable children, youth and families have had to contend with budget cuts that are expected to continue.

In 2013-14, the DYPs handled 82,919 signalements – a 3% increase over the previous year. This figure translates to a daily average, in Quebec, of 227 cases reported.

Among these reports, the highest proportion of signalements retained were for negligence and serious risk of negligence – 35.8% across Quebec – while physical abuse and serious risk of physical abuse ranked a close second.

Significant progress, but challenges remain
Quebec has seen appreciable progress, over the past 35 years, in the work done to improve child protection and support for families. The YPA, as well as practices and forms of intervention, have evolved in step with new social realities: reconfigured family structures, recurrence of mental health problems and, more recently, honour-related violence.

Knowledge and expertise are the tools that enable more effective intervention and serve to better equip parents to meet their children's basic needs. The various partners have also been working more collaboratively, which has led to higher numbers of children remaining with their families.

Thirty-five years later, however, a world with no mistreated children remains a long way off. The thousands of signalements retained as cases every year, in Quebec, point to the need for maintaining and expanding the support and services network for highly vulnerable children and families.

Period of tough choices a cause for worry
DYPs, concerned about how socio-economic factors today impact the status and living conditions of vulnerable children, and about the importance of maintaining a service level adequate to protecting children and helping families, stress that children should be a national priority.

They invite our policymakers to keep in mind the impact of the longer-term social and financial costs resulting from child mistreatment, the lack of support and failure to meet children's and families' needs.

The 2013-14 DYP report can be accessed at www.acjq.qc.ca

About the ACJQ
The Association des centres jeunesse du Québec comprises 16 youth centres, specialized establishments with a regional mandate, and health centres offering youth services in the North. The youth centres are responsible for administering the Youth Protection Act, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and adoption-related legislation. Their mission is to provide psychosocial or rehabilitation services to vulnerable children and youth, as well as their families, throughout Quebec.

SOURCE Association des centres jeunesse du Québec (ACJQ)

Press release CNW
22 Septmber 2014

http://www.newswire.ca/en/story/1415358/11th-directors-of-youth-protection-annual-report-commitment-to-children-dating-back-35-years-in-period-of-tough-choices-social-investment-should-be-ma

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22 SEPTEMBER 2014

USA

Emerson launches 'Ferguson Forward' program,
funds youth jobs and scholarships

The global manufacturing company Emerson is upping its investment in the Ferguson community to show "renewed commitment" to the place it has been headquartered for 70 years.

"We choose to be here and are committed to this community, especially now in its increased time of need," chairman and CEO David Farr said in a press release. "We...want to help remove barriers so that more of our neighbors can succeed."

The "Ferguson Forward" program announced on Thursday will fund early childhood education programs, the creation of 100 youth jobs, millions in scholarship money for area students, and business development training. The company will also continue existing commitments with the United Way for at least two years.

We think it's the right thing to do," said executive vice president Patrick Sly in a telephone interview.

Job opportunities

Sly said he is most excited about the program's approach to creating youth jobs. Working with MERS Goodwill Industries and the STL Youth Jobs program, Emerson will spend $750,000 to fund 100 jobs for Ferguson-area residents between the ages of 16 and 23 to work at local companies.

"In many cases this is going to be their first job, to build a resume, have a mentor relationship with their bosses, and we'll use job coaches to assist them," Sly said.

Emerson's press release states this work experience could have a "significant effect in reducing high rates of youth helplessness, violence and crime."

Emerson's executives and managers will also be reaching out to local businesses to offer their experience and advice. The company will also work with new businesses that are interested in investing in the community.

"We're offering our people on a pro bono basis to help them get started," Sly said.

Educational programs

Missouri State Treasurer Clint Zweifel lauded the initiative's educational components.

"Emerson knows, as I do, that the long-term recovery of this region will come from sustainable job growth. and that begins with accessible, quality education for our students," he said in a statement.

Emerson will continue its efforts to improve early childhood education resources in the area, through its work with the New Horizons Early Childhood Education Center in Ferguson. According to its press release, the company is also working on a plan for an early childhood learning resource center.

"The importance of early childhood education is absolutely critical," Sly said. "Children learn to develop relationships, makes sure that they come to pre-school and kindergarten and primary school well-prepared, and it's just proven to improve school performance later in their lives."

Another initiative will focus on improving educational opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). Emerson will contribute $1.5 million over the next five years toward 30 scholarships.

Administered by the Opportunity Scholars Program through the University of Missouri-St. Louis, the scholarships will be given to under-represented or first-generation students to study in the STEM fields. Students from the Ferguson-Florissant, Normandy, Jennings and other neighboring districts will be eligible.

The company will also donate $1.75 million in scholarships for North County students who choose to study technical and trade skills at Ranken Technical College.

Press release: Stephanie Lecci of St. Louis Public Radio
19 September 2014

http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/article_b0fd7276-4006-11e4-bbb1-ab6d8ffc5494.html

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19 SEPTEMBER 2014

NORTH TEXAS

Our Community Our Kids puts foster care improvements in motion

After more than three years of study and preparation, Our Community Our Kids, a division of ACH Child and Family Services, takes charge of the state's Foster Care Redesign initiative this month, instituting significant innovations designed to improve the lives of children in need of foster care in seven North Texas counties.

As the regional contractor for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, Our Community Our Kids will support the efforts of agencies that provide foster care services to nearly 2,400 area children each year.

"Our name reflects the value we as a community have placed on caring for our most vulnerable children," said Gary Buff, chief operating officer for Our Community Our Kids. "By coordinating services and establishing efficiencies, our network can offer resources that have not been available to our community before."

Those innovations include access to:

The new technologies and innovations to foster care that are being introduced to the network came about after two years of ACH research into Foster Care Redesign and how it might be implemented locally. The agency began benchmarking and collecting best practices from across the nation to create a unique plan specific to the needs of Texas children and families.

"Through the collaborative efforts of Our Community Our Kids, we can design a more consistent approach to the training and support of foster families. This will help us make better matches and placements for kids on the front end, and ultimately will lower the number of placement disruptions for children in foster care," said Bill Lund, chief executive officer of Covenant Kids, an Arlington, Texas-based foster care provider agency that is part of the new network.

ACH and the Our Community Our Kids team are excited to bring real change that will improve the lives of children, said Wayne Carson, chief executive officer of ACH. "We are introducing innovations to a system that has been broken for a while. As a community, we can work toward solutions that provide our children with safety, hope, love and the capacity to thrive."

Press release: PRNewswire-USNewswire
17 September 2014

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/our-community-our-kids-puts-foster-care-improvements-in-motion-for-children-in-seven-north-texas-counties-275438121.html

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17 SEPTEMBER 2014

California youth wins national award for heroic service activity

Claire Wineland, age 17, of Redondo Beach, California, has been named a national winner of the 2014 Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes. Each year, the Barron Prize celebrates twenty-five inspiring, public-spirited young people from all across America who have made a significant positive difference to people and our planet. The top fifteen winners each receive a $5,000 cash award to support their service work or higher education.

Claire created Claire’s Place Foundation to provide emotional and financial support to families whose children have cystic fibrosis (CF). In three years, she has raised over $150,000. Claire, who lives with CF, began her work following a life-threatening experience in the hospital at age 13, when an infection following a minor surgery spread throughout her body, sending her into complete lung failure. She was placed in the intensive care unit in a medically induced coma for several weeks and given a 1% chance of surviving. She defied all the odds and after regaining her strength months later, decided to help other families living with CF. She credits her recovery to the love and support she received and wanted to offer the same to others.

Her first goal was to set up an Extended Hospital Stay Fund to help families pay bills and reduce financial worries while caring for their children during lengthy hospitalizations. She also created CF University, a website of text and video resources to help newly diagnosed families understand the world of CF and to give longtime CFers the latest information and hope. The website offers detailed, child- and teen-friendly information on terminology and medical procedures, and on living life with cystic fibrosis to the fullest, not just struggling along until there is a cure. Claire is also working to create a Support Families program that will connect newly diagnosed or isolated families with a more experienced support family. “I can’t help but feel that cystic fibrosis gave me the gift of passion – passion for life and all it holds, its ups and downs, struggles and opportunities,” explains Claire. “And I can’t imagine a better way to live than trying to share some of that passion and help others going through the same thing.”

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB)
September 16, 2014

http://www.prweb.com/releases/ClaireWineland/clairesplace/prweb12171210.htm

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15 SEPTEMBER 2014

US underage drinking declines steadily

When I was growing up in South Louisiana, the laws governing underage drinking were loosely enforced at best. Not only was the drinking age there still 18 (we were the last state to change it to 21), but no one really cared: teenagers were mostly allowed to drink and even to go to bars, as long as they acted responsibly. Obviously, that has all changed.

I do not promote underage drinking when it really means underage. For example, a 13 year old kid who drinks is setting himself or herself up for a life of problems. But if someone is old enough to drive, or vote, or go to war, then I believe they should also be allowed to drink responsibly, maybe under supervision. But I digress: obviously, there is no strict, biological, scientific number for the age that drinking should be allowed: it is a matter of cultural philosophy and politics. Even so, under a certain level of physical and psychological maturity, drinking should be forbidden because it can cause many problems.

So the good news is that, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services, underage drinking has been declining steadily in the past few years, and that trend continues. Contrarily, marijuana use among young people is increasing, but that is another story. This press release from the Beer Institute is very enlightening:

WASHINGTON, DC – A recent release of an annual study of drug and alcohol use conducted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) found that while marijuana use was on the rise, underage drinking continued a trend downward in 2013.

Beer Institute President and CEO Jim McGreevy issued the following statement in response:

“While there is always more work to do, the fact that fewer underage youth are drinking is welcome news. America’s brewers and beer importers are committed to responsibility, and that means we are putting real money and real effort into our partnerships with law enforcement and community leaders to reduce underage drinking. These numbers prove that when we all work together, we can make a difference.”

The 2013 numbers demonstrate broad decline of underage alcohol use:

The data released by HHS coincides with the 25th annual observance of National Recovery Month by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Beer Institute member companies invest in hundreds of programs and initiatives to support public safety, education and prevention of underage drinking. Brewers and importers encourage parents to talk with their teens about making good, safe decisions. Research shows that by far parents have the most influence on teens’ drinking decisions.

NSDUH is an annual survey of approximately 68,000 people throughout the country, aged 12 and older.

Let’s hope this trend continues, and that more and more US parents will teach their children how to enjoy quality beer and wine responsibly and moderately, so that they do not go off to college and become binge drinkers: a high risk activity. What are your thoughts on underage drinking in the US?

Press Release
Matt Miller

http://everythingontap.com/2014/09/12/us-underage-drinking-declines-steadily-eot-beer-news/

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12 SEPTEMBER 2014

Children with married parents are better off – but marriage isn’t the reason why

We know that children raised by two parents tend to be more successful – at school, in the future labor market, in their own marriages – than children raised by a single mom or dad. And from this fact, it might seem easy to conclude that marriage wields some outsized power over a child's life – that its absence creates unstable homes and chaotic families, while its presence nurtures them.

In reality, though, the question of why children of married parents are more likely to thrive is an extraordinarily complicated one. From a new analysis by Kimberly Howard and Richard V. Reeves at the Center on Children and Families at the Brookings Institution:

Is it simply because they have, on average, higher family incomes? (Two earners are better than one, and one household is cheaper to run than two.) Or are two committed spouses better able to provide consistent parenting? Is it marriage itself that matters, or is marriage the visible expression of other factors, that are the true cause of different outcomes? And if so, which ones?

Parents who marry differ from parents who don't in many ways beyond the marriage itself. Today, better-educated, higher-income adults are much more likely to marry. That means their children benefit from the marriage, and the income, and the education of their parents. Howard and Reeves also point out that the same skills that make marriages work (like commitment and patience) also come handy for good parenting. And so perhaps it's not that children are better off when their parents marry – it's that the qualities that enable successful marriages also make good parents.

Among all of these factors, it's not easy to tease out what matters most. But the answers (as best as we can identify them) are crucial for public policy. If we believe that marriage itself is what matters for children, then we'd want to encourage parents to marry. If we believe it's the financial stability that matters, then we'd want to find ways to bolster the income of single parents outside of marriage. If we believe it's the good parenting skills so often present in married households that make the difference, we could try to instill those skills in parents regardless of whether they have spouses.

In their analysis, Reeves and Howard offer a large part of the answer. By their calculation, children whose mothers are continuously married grow up to make higher incomes at age 40 than children raised at some point by single parents. The difference amounts to about 14 percentiles in adult income rank (children with married parents grow up to make, at age 40, in the 57th income percentile, compared to the 43rd). How much of that difference might be attributable to factors other than – and perhaps obscured by – the marital status of their mothers?

Their analysis uses a model based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. When they controlled for the income differences of married and single-parent households, the age-40 income gap shrank by 5 percentiles.

Two-parent households don't just tend to have more money (which they might spend on tutors, museums, books or simply better health care and groceries). They also have more time (which they might spend on homework help, library visits and bedtime reading). Add the time factor to the parenting qualities I mentioned earlier (patience, commitment), and it's possible that part of the marriage effect is really a "parenting effect": Children with married parents also have more engaged parents, and it's the engagement that really matters.

When Reeves and Howard controlled for a measure of parenting based on home observation and self-reported behavior, that 14-percentile difference shrank even more dramatically, to 7.5 percentiles. "Parenting" here covers activities like regularly reading or eating meals with children.

When Reeves and Howard controlled for parenting and income at the same time, along with a few other characteristics like race and the age of the mother, that 14 percentile difference shrinks down to a little more than four percentiles. Reeves is confident the gap would shrink even further if researchers had reliable data to account for other factors, like the socioeconomic status of neighborhoods where children grow up, or the quality of schools they attend. At the end of the day, marriage itself might still have some effect on the adult outcomes of children. But it would be a small one.

Parenting skills and income levels are no doubt closely related, so we can't simply add the two effects together in the above analysis. But it's clear here that parenting skills and income levels drive much of the difference we often more simply attribute to marriage itself.

"Those two factors taken together explain most of the better outcomes for the children of married couples," Reeves says. "Not all. But most. And I think the takeaway here is not to mistake a commitment device – which marriage is – for an explanatory device."

Making single parents get married, in other words, won't fundamentally change the other characteristics about them that really drive their children's success. The good news in this is that family income and parenting skills are more realistically addressed through public policy than marriage anyway.

Emily Badger
The Washington Post
8 September 2014

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/09/08/children-with-married-parents-are-better-off-but-marriage-isnt-the-reason-why/

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10 SEPTEMBER 2014

Child approach – East Maitland

Police would like to thank the community after a boy was identified, after an appeal was made yesterday in relation to a child approach at East Maitland.

About 4.15pm on Saturday (6 September 2014), a 13-year-old girl and 11-year-old boy were at a playground on Macgowan Street. Police have been told a youth approached the children and spoke to them inappropriately. The children left the playground, and the girl told her mother what had happened.

Officers from Central Hunter Local Area Command attended and started an investigation. Within hours of the public appeal, police were able to identify a boy. He was spoken to by officers and it was determined that he did not understand the consequences of his actions.

The Central Hunter Local Area Command Crime Manager, Detective Inspector John ZDRILIC said, "I am very heartened and thankful for the immediate response from members of the public that assisted in identifying the young man that brought this matter to a swift conclusion."

"This was very much a case of an unfortunate misunderstanding and a valuable lesson has been learnt."

Press release: New South Wales Police
9 September 2014

http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/news/latest_releases?sq_content_src=%2BdXJsPWh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGZWJpenByZC5wb2xpY2UubnN3Lmdvdi5hdSUyRm1lZGlhJTJGNDA3MjAuaHRtbCZhbGw9MQ%3D%3D

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8 SEPTEMBER 2014

US: National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month

Childhood obesity is worse in America than it ever has been before. The children are the future, but when their future potentially involves morbid obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease, where must we draw the line?

It’s National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, and an announcement from the U.S. Surgeon General states that this month is an attempt to “renew our efforts to reverse the continuing crisis of obesity among our nation’s youth.” The fact is, Acting Surgeon General Dr. Boris Lushniak says in the press release, every child, “regardless of ethnicity, socio-economic background, or ability, should have equal access to healthy food options and physical activity opportunities.” But reversing the childhood obesity epidemic is complicated and has to be administered on a widespread scale, focusing on health care, school system lunches, reducing food deserts, and removing trans fats and other “bad” fats from fast food and junk food.

According to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), childhood obesity has more than doubled in children and quadrupled in adolescents in the past 30 years. In 2012, 18 percent of children aged 6 to 11 years old were obese – an increase from seven percent in 1980. This trend is in line with the overall obesity epidemic in the U.S.; one-third of adults are obese, and the number is steadily increasing. American portion sizes have exploded, and kids are drinking bigger sodas more frequently than ever before.

Some states are starting programs that aim to make schools healthier by adhering to strict nutritional guidelines. Sixty schools in Michigan, for example, will take part in a program called Building Healthy Communities, which will provide students with nutrition education, healthy food and beverages, and physical education and exercise. In addition, some 32 schools will receive grants to provide breakfast in the classroom (which is an excellent idea with how important breakfast is). And Michelle Obama’s initiative, Let’s Move!, has been fighting for a paradigm shift on a national scale.

But on a smaller, more personal scale, there are things you can do as a parent to fight childhood obesity one step at a time. Whether or not your children participate in any school-oriented physical activity programs, make sure to get them moving once a day. Avoid TV, video games, computers, or other electronic devices for at least a half hour every day, and have your kids get outside. The American Heart Association suggests that teenagers get at least four hours of physical education per week, so supplementing exercise at home is a good idea. Having your kids join recreational sports, or encouraging them to ride bikes, can be a good step forward.

Lecia Bushak
6 September 2014

http://www.medicaldaily.com/national-childhood-obesity-awareness-month-why-keeping-our-kids-fit-and-healthy-crucial-301622

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5 SEPTEMBER 2014

Musical training improves youth brain functions

New research provides hard evidence that community music programs can enhance brain function in at-risk children. The Northwestern University study provides the first direct evidence that a community music program for at-risk youth has a biological effect on children’s developing nervous systems.

Researchers discovered two years of music lessons improved the precision with which the children’s brains distinguished similar speech sounds, a neural process that is linked to language and reading skills.

One year of training, however, was not associated with changes in the nervous system.

“This research demonstrates that community music programs can literally ‘remodel’ children’s brains in a way that improves sound processing, which could lead to better learning and language skills,” said study lead author Nina Kraus.

The paper is published in the Journal of Neuroscience.

Researchers say study is unique as it evaluated biological changes following participation in an existing, successful music education program.

Kraus, director of Northwestern’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, and her team collaborated with Harmony Project. For more than a decade, Harmony Project has provided free music instruction to thousands of disadvantaged children from gang-reduction zones in Los Angeles. Children between the ages of 6 and 9 participated in the study.

The research team traveled to Los Angeles to evaluate them as they enrolled in Harmony Project’s programs and returned each summer for the following two years to evaluate them longitudinally.

“We used a quick but powerful neural probe that allowed us to gauge speech processing with unprecedented precision. With it, we found that the brain changes only followed two years of music training,” Kraus said. “These findings are a testament that it’s a mistake to think of music education as a quick fix, but that if it’s an ongoing part of children’s education, making music can have a profound and lifelong impact on listening and learning.”

Research from around the world has suggested links between music training, enhanced brain function and heightened language skills. This is the first study, however, that uses random assignment to evaluate brain changes in collaboration with an existing and successful community music program that targets disadvantaged children. Prior research had focused on individuals from affluent homes who received private lessons.

“Thanks to this finding, sustained music training is now an evidence-based method for closing the achievement gap between poor kids and their more advantaged peers,” said Margaret Martin, founder of Harmony Project. Martin approached Kraus several years ago, having observed the positive impact that music was having on Harmony kids’ lives.

Since 2008, 93 percent of Harmony Project seniors have gone on to college despite dropout rates of 50 percent or more in their neighborhoods.

“Now we know this success is rooted, at least in part, in the unique brain changes imparted by making music,” Martin added.

“Biologically, you are what you do, and your past shapes your present,” Kraus said. “Community interventions have the potential to instill salient benefits in children that can set them up for better learning in and out of the classroom.”

These findings provide biological backing for the large-scale implementation of these programs to promote child brain health and development.

Source: Northwestern University
4 September 2014

http://psychcentral.com/news/2014/09/04/musical-training-improves-youth-brain-functions/74483.html

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3 SEPTEMBER 2014

Children’s cancer death rates drop by more than 20 per cent in 10 years

The rate of children dying from cancer has dropped by 22 per cent in the last decade, according to new figures published by Cancer Research UK at the start of Children’s Cancer Awareness Month.

A decade ago around 330 children in the UK died from cancer each year, but thanks to better treatments this has now dropped to around 260 each year. The steepest decline was in leukaemia, the most commonly diagnosed children’s cancer, where death rates have almost halved, dropping from around 100 deaths each year to around 55.

Much of this success is due to tackling childhood cancers by combining a number of different chemotherapy drugs. Cancer Research UK played a key role in the clinical trials that proved the benefits of these combined treatments, including a large international trial that has helped lead to liver cancer death rates falling by a quarter (26 per cent) in the last decade. Research to improve imaging and radiotherapy techniques is also playing its part.

Professor Pam Kearns, director of the Cancer Research UK Clinical Trials Unit in Birmingham, said: “It’s very encouraging to see that fewer children are dying of cancer, but a lot more needs to be done. There are still a number of cancers where progress has been limited – such as brain tumours. Cancer Research UK’s long-standing commitment to clinical trials for children with cancer has been a major factor in developing today’s treatments and is pivotal to ongoing research that will offer new hope to the children and their families.

“Many children who survive cancer will live with the long-term side effects of their treatment that can have an impact throughout their adult lives, so it’s vital that we find kinder and even more effective treatments for them.”

The new figures are announced as Cancer Research UK and TK Maxx celebrate the 10th anniversary of their partnership and the Give Up Clothes For Good campaign, the UK’s biggest clothes collection. Since 2004, TK Maxx has raised £13.2m to help Cancer Research UK find ways to beat children’s cancers sooner, funding research into many areas including developing better treatments that also reduce the long-term side effects for children with cancer.

To mark the occasion, TK Maxx will fund the UK’s participation in an international children’s cancer trial led by Professor Richard Grundy to improve survival for children and young people with a type of brain tumour called ependymoma. These tumours are often aggressive and difficult to treat and better therapies are urgently needed to improve survival and quality of life for young people and their families affected by this devastating disease.

Professor Richard Grundy, from the University of Nottingham, said: “Cancer Research UK has made clinical trials possible that have led to great improvements in treatments for childhood cancers. However, ependymoma brain tumours are exceptionally difficult to treat and survival rates remain poor.

“It’s fantastic that Cancer Research UK and TK Maxx are funding this international clinical trial. Importantly, we will link our new trial to the vital lab work that will help us understand more about the disease in the hope we can help more children survive this type of brain tumour.”

Around 1,600 children are diagnosed with cancer every year in the UK. Overall survival for childhood cancer has tripled since the 1960s, and three quarters of children with cancer are now cured. Cancer Research UK has been at the heart of this progress.

Harpal Kumar, Cancer Research UK’s chief executive said, “We’ve made great progress in helping more and more children survive cancer than ever before, but this work is not finished – better, kinder treatments must continue to be our target. Our researchers are making great strides every year to help even more children beat the disease.

“Thanks to our unique collaboration with TK Maxx, that has raised £13.2 million since 2004, we have been able to fund life-saving research to help us understand childhood cancers and develop better treatments.”

Press release: Cancer Research UK
1 September 2014

http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-us/cancer-news/press-release/children%E2%80%99s-cancer-death-rates-drop-by-more-than-20-per-cent-in-10-years

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1 SEPTEMBER 2014

Warning to schools and others

District warns ‘choking game’ is deadly

Erik Robinson was a typical sixth-grader, an “A” student, avid athlete and Boy Scout. The dream of the California youth to enter the military ended on April 10, 2010.

Bamberg School District 1 is holding an information seminar about a deadly “game” authorities say has claimed at least 82 children since it’s been recognized. Youth call it the “choking” or “fainting” game, and it’s anything but a game. School officials say it’s one among many risky behaviors that children are becoming involved in that can result in serious brain injury or even death.

The seminar is being held at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the Richard Carroll Elementary School cafeteria. There is no admission and all concerned caregivers are urged to attend.

School officials say they’re holding the class in the wake of the death of a student who may have been playing the game. It’s not confirmed the choking game was involved, and school officials want to remain respectful toward the teen’s family.

Officials say they want to create awareness of the dangerous game to prevent any needless deaths.

Denise Miller, intervention coordinator at Richard Carroll Elementary School, said authorities have found the activity is popular among pre-teens and up. “It’s called the good kid’s high,” she said. “It’s when children get a high by choking each other.”

The problem, officials say, is shutting off air to the brain to create a rush can lead to death in some cases.

A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found evidence that since 1995 at least 82 youths between the age of 6 and 19 have been confirmed as victims of the activity in the United States.

The study found that of those 82 deaths, 86 percent were male while the average age is just over 13 years old. The study says more than 95 percent of the fatalities happened while the youths were alone. The CDC study also discovered that in those deaths, 92 percent of parents were unaware of the deadly game. But those statistics may not be telling the entire story, as many of these types of deaths are classified as suicides.

Often the children who participate in the activity are intelligent youths from loving families who also do well in school, Miller said.

Some of the seminar’s materials will come from the website Games Adolescents Shouldn’t Play, or GASP, an organization with the goal of ending the game via awareness. GASP simply calls it “an asphyxiation activity that causes the needless death of children and suffering of communities.” Based in Wisconsin, the group advocates knowledge on the part of parents and children.

Miller said knowledge is part of the problem. Few tweens and teens, whether participating in the activity or not, know precisely what can happen. “There so much misinformation about the game,” she said. “Some of them think it makes you stronger, bigger.”

The GASP website takes the position that educating and creating awareness does not promote the activity. They say it is a misconception that providing information teaches children the potentially deadly activity. “Most children already know about the choking game, yet very few understand the inevitable danger,” the site states. “None of our materials show children how to play, and we take an active stance against any organization that teaches the game as part of their message.”

Other educational materials to be used by Bamberg school officials Tuesday include information found on Erikscause.org, the web site founded by Erik Robinson’s parents, who say there is credible evidence to suggest Erik died during his first experience playing the choking game.

Miller said other potentially deadly “games” being played by today’s youth will be discussed during the seminar as well. Informative tips on computer safety will be offered.

Richard Walker
31 August 2014

http://thetandd.com/news/district-warns-choking-game-is-deadly/article_13d0b7ac-30c9-11e4-9d22-001a4bcf887a.html

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