November 2009

Effort to lower drinking age losing steam?

Support for Amethyst Initiative slows as health professionals blast debate to allow 18-to-20-year-olds to drink.

Before she died, Ayesha Kathleen Wintersdorff was a rising senior at Blacksburg High School and a DECA officer who worked to feed the hungry in her community. She was killed just after 4 a.m. on June 28, 2008, after she lost control of her car on U.S. 460 in Blacksburg, crossed the center line and hit a guardrail, according to police reports.

At the time, police declined to say what caused the wreck.

Wintersdorff had earlier attended a gathering hosted by Zachary Daniel Grinnan, then a 21-year-old Blacksburg resident. Grinnan was convicted this month of contributing to the delinquency of a minor in connection with the crash. He had been accused of supplying the 16-year-old girl with alcohol before the wreck.

There are about 10.8 million underage drinkers in the United States, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. And they’re not just having one beer. Nationally, 29 percent of high school seniors, 22 percent of sophomores and 11 percent of eighth-graders reported having consumed five or more drinks on a single occasion, according to the a 2005 study on the institute’s Web site.

And the results are similar in Roanoke County, where about 24 percent of high schoolers reported they had engaged in binge drinking, according to the 2008 Youth Risk Behavior Survey. "This is an adult problem with a youth consequence," said Nancy Hans, coordinator of the Roanoke County Prevention Council. "Our biggest challenge is to get parents onboard with this" and talking to their children about alcohol and its risks long before they get to college, she said. While organizations such as Hans’ are focused on reducing dangerous drug and alcohol use by teenagers, Hans fears success by an effort to lower the legal drinking age would only exacerbate the problem.

The Amethyst Initiative — a controversial proposal to combat binge drinking at the college level by relaxing federal funding penalties on states that lower the legal drinking age —has for more than a year pushed the discussion of lowering the legal drinking age to 18. But the initative seems to have stalled as health care professionals continue to insist that lowering the drinking age won’t solve the problem of college drinking — and will only increase dangerous drinking by younger teens by increasing the availability of alcohol.

The consequences can be severe. Each year, according to the U.S. surgeon general, about 5,000 people under the age of 21 die as a result of underage drinking. About 1,900 die from motor vehicle crashes, 1,600 from homicide and 300 from suicide. Hundreds more drown or die from injuries sustained in falls or fires.

Tonia Moxley
29 November 2009

http://www.roanoke.com/multimedia/under21/stories/227505

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Nine lives: The stories of Iowa's homeless teens brought together in one moving volume

Nine lives, each unique. They are from isolated rural towns and thriving inner cities; some lived with two parents, some have only known foster parents, and some were single parents themselves, before they were of legal age. Some have suffered unthinkable abuse, while others only watched episodes of family violence as regular as the evening news. They have been straight-A students, drug addicts, thieves and scared little girls. Nine stories - each unique. What brought them together are the commonalities they share: they are all Iowa's children, and they have all been homeless, or nearly so, for much of their young lives.

Danny Heggen felt their stories - raw and rough and shocking as they are - were important for others to hear. His book, From a Growing Community: Iowa's Homeless Youth, is a compilation of letters that represent just a sampling of the estimated 10,000 homeless young people from around the state.

Twenty-four-year-old Heggen is not of their world. Raised in a stable, middle-class family in Woodward, Iowa, Heggen was a pre-med student. When a very good friend died of brain cancer, the event changed Heggen's life.
"I needed to find some way to express the loss," Heggen said. "His story was something that stayed with me, and I needed to find a way to tell it". A student at Simpson College, Heggen switched his college major to English, and became a writer. While studying abroad, a volunteer experience in a women's prison in Perth, Australia, led Heggen to publish a collection of the inmates' life stories. Titled Voices on the Inside: the Women of Boronia, the book was Heggen's way of giving depth to the women's tales, of helping people understand there was more to each prisoner than her crime.

He returned to Iowa in 2007, and, while volunteering at Iowa Homeless Youth Centers (IHYC) shelters in Des Moines and at Youth Shelter Services (YSS) in Ames, he met kids from all over the state. "Homelessness is a statewide issue," he said, noting that 97 of Iowa's 99 counties report statistics on homeless youth. "They just end up wherever the services are". And wherever they had come from, Heggen heard similarities in their stories. He heard, over and again, how many of these young people had never been cared for, never felt safe, had never had their voices heard.

Heggen initiated a project similar to his work in Perth, asking teens to submit their personal accounts of homelessness. He received 10 letters almost immediately, written in long-hand, most with no return addresses; the letter-writers have none. "The power of these letters is that they are intimate and personal," Heggen said. "Each is an honest glimpse of a real personality, that reveals who these youth are. You might get tired of hearing the number, '10,000 homeless,' but these are actual people, who invested time to write these letters. There's somebody behind each one"

There's Steph, (a pseudonym) from Iowa City, whose step-dad threw her mother through the front window on Christmas Eve when Steph was 11. "When those fights would happen, (Mom) would always promise to never make us go through that again. Then, a couple days later, she'd go back to him, and it'd happen again. It always happened again". The physical violence and verbal abuse started Steph on a continual pattern of running away from home, which led to sleeping outdoors, spending time in shelters and eventually being driven into the country, raped and abandoned on the roadside by someone she thought was a friend when she was just 15.

There's Trevor, from Cedar Rapids, who grew up watching his parents do drugs and his father's routine incarceration. Finding community within gang life, for Trevor, included dealing cocaine, fighting in school and, during a drug deal gone south, running while his best friend died of a gunshot wound in an alley. When his father was released from jail, the physical fights between Trevor and his dad got so bad, Trevor set out on his own. "When he was drinking, we'd get into fist-fights," Trevor wrote. "All I could do to get away from this was run. So I did".

There's also John, who, along with his two parents and two sisters, lived in a trailer with holes in the floor and no heat. When money for the water bill dried up, the family used jugs to steal water from a nearby farmer's well. Though his father works and his mother collects disability, the family relies on the services of nearby shelters to get by; things like deodorant and extra blankets became unaffordable luxuries. "When prices for things kept going up, it took a lot out of my family," wrote John. "We're the part of America that couldn't afford those changes".

The stories are told with brutal honesty, often in shocking detail. However, Heggen has been able to see beyond the profanity and pain, the graphic nature of lives lived desperately, and he hopes readers will, too. "Everything about these kids has been censored their entire lives," Heggen said. "If (a reader) is offended by their language, (he or she) is not focusing on the real issue".

Heggen made homelessness his focus, and found a like-minded partner to help bring his project to the next level. Graphic artist and designer, musician and photographer Justin Norman is the founder of the Des Moines-based design and publishing company Shrieking Tree. Norman had been volunteering at the Des Moines Catholic Worker, and he and Heggen began to brainstorm about how to bring the stories of Iowa's homeless teen population to light.
Further, they wanted to demonstrate what the rest of us can do to help, as individuals and as a community. "This project is important to me because it has shown me what I am capable of," said Norman. "Graphic design doesn't have to be just slathering everything that comes off an assembly line with gloss. I'm able to use my interests and my strengths to get involved".

That's not just rhetoric for these two young men. Armed with the motto, "Don't doubt what can be accomplished; be a part of it," and buoyed by the help of Justin's photographer-brother Wesley and friend and designer Nicole Anderson, as well as assistance from musician friends who put on a concert to raise funds to print the book, the four have sold over 900 copies so far. At $20 per copy, half of each book sale goes directly back to Iowa's homeless shelters.
Heggen and Norman felt it was critical their efforts not only help the homeless, but that they support those who provide services every day. "I know it sounds cliche, but this book is proof that if everybody does a small part, it makes a difference," said Norman.

Heggen suggests no gesture is too small, and even small things are significant. "It can be something as brief as serving a meal at a shelter, or whatever you can do" If you quilt or knit, donate a blanket, he said. If you like to cook, help in a shelter's kitchen. Donate your unwanted clothes, give somebody a ride, listen to their words.

"The list goes on and on. Helping means different things for different people. Hopefully, you'll figure out (what you can do)," Norman said. For the 26- year- old Norman, a Christian background provides simple guidance. "I think churches have a special responsibility," in helping others, said Norman. "Basically, do to others what you want done to you"

For communities, the two give this advice, from the perspectives of the young homeless people they have come to know:

"They need consistency from the community. They need to know we are here, and still care about them," Heggen said. Reaching out means acknowledging homelessness is an issue, in every community. "Don't silence them, but give them a voice and actually engage them in something meaningful".

The rewards may not be tangible, but they are real.

"The kids are thankful," said Norman. "It brings their stories out of the muffled cracks they've fallen into".

To purchase a copy of From a Growing Community: Iowa's Homeless Youth, visit www.shriekingtree.com/growingcommunity.  Every purchase garners $10 for Iowa's homeless shelters.

Lori Lindner
25 November 2009

http://www.northlibertyleader.com/article.php?id=1016

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Care worker's battle

Brenda Ceaser's first brush with cancer was 26 years ago. She beat it, but it took extensive chemotherapy and the loss of her right breast.

In early July she discovered a pronounced bump in her left armpit. She knew instinctively that the disease she'd vanquished so many years ago had returned. A mammogram at Heart of Florida Regional Medical Center in Haines City erased any doubts. Ceaser, 52, had her second mastectomy July 29 at the same hospital. She hasn't worked since, and it may be January before she's cleared by physicians to return to her job as a youth care worker at an Orlando juvenile detention facility.

The Ledger's Newspaper with a Heart program is providing the Waverly woman a bridge over her current troubles. In addition to assistance with rent and electric, the Heart program's committee of seasoned social services caseworkers is attempting to clear up confusion over the short-term disability policy she paid into through her employer, G4S Youth Services. The policy, through Aflac, paid Ceaser $864 for the month of August, or $36 a day for 24 days. Yet her policy benefit was for 173 days. For reasons that remain unclear, she never received another payment, and in short order she fell behind in her household bills.

Often, she doesn't have the money for her medical co-payments, and the bills for her out-of-pocket costs continue to mount. Somehow, she said, doctors continue to treat her, since she is covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield. "Every time I go see the doctor I owe them," she said. "But they still see me. For how long, I don't know."

Now in its 41st year, The Ledger's Heart program helps people who, through no fault of their own, face temporary financial hardship. Donations, which are tax-deductible, make it possible to assist people like Ceaser, who was already living paycheck-to-paycheck when her health was compromised.

For the past six years, Ceaser has worked at the Orange Youth Academy, a residential program for high-risk male offenders between the ages of 14 and 19. Her job is to help these young men get through their daily routine with minimal fuss, and to be a shoulder to lean on. "If they get in trouble in the classroom, we try to counsel them, we try to turn them around," Ceaser said. "I enjoyed going to work. I miss it."

The mother of three grown children, Ceaser made the roughly two-hour commute from her home in Waverly, near Lake Wales, to Orlando and back, until her surgery for breast cancer at the end of July.

Ceaser said her cancer is a particularly aggressive form that will require extensive chemotherapy followed by radiation. Her treatments could last anywhere from six months to a year, and she faces the uncertainty of side effects that could postpone her return to work.

Because of her temporary unemployment, Ceaser qualified for $160 a month in food stamps, which doesn't go very far, "but it's better than nothing," she said.

"Some times I get a little depressed, but I just pray that the Lord's going to get me out of it. It's an uphill battle." 

http://www.theledger.com/article/20091123/NEWS/911235058/1410?Title=26-Years-After-First-Incidence-Disease-Returns

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NORTH DAKOTA

Judging for themselves

When South Central District Judge Gail Hagerty gave a group of foster children the chance to don a judge's robe and grab a gavel, Jacob Roubideaux didn't waste any time in taking the place of a judge. "It's way cooler sitting up there than it is back here," the 16-year-old said afterward.

Roubideaux was one of about 10 foster children visiting the Burleigh County Courthouse on Friday afternoon for Burleigh County's first Kids and Judges Day. The event was modeled after one held in Utah, in which judges teach children about courts in a friendly environment, judicial referee John Grinsteiner said. He read about the idea in a juvenile family justice magazine and approached Hagerty, the presiding judge in the district, about putting on a similar event.

Grinsteiner explained that many children become involved in the court system through "no fault of their own." Children in foster care may not understand how judges make decisions that pertain to their lives, he said. "That could be, one, scary, and two, you could just have some questions," he said. Kids and Judges Day was created to give them a chance to meet judges and see them as regular people, Grinsteiner said.

Rita Weisz, regional supervisor of child welfare services for West Central Human Services, helped organize the event, inviting foster children from the area to come to the courthouse. "We're hoping we can do this annually," she said.

Hagerty went through a pamphlet about the courts, called The Family Circus visits the courts, which she admitted was a little young for the mostly teenage crowd. She explained the different jobs people have in the courthouse and how their work contributes to the judicial system. Hagerty explained judges must first be lawyers and can be appointed or elected to the bench.

"I went door to door and asked people to vote for me," she explained. She told the kids that judges wear robes, sit on a higher part of the courtroom and ask people to rise when they enter the courtroom to set them apart from the rest of the crowd. "We don't wear it because we're so important," she said.

After Hagerty explained how things work in a courtroom, she invited the children to explore a little - try on a robe, check out a gavel and ask questions. Roubideaux was the first to give it a shot. Dion Young, 16, also wanted to try on the heavy black robe. Young, who intends to go to law school some day, said he had been in a courtroom before. The Bismarck High School sophomore was surprised by the number of books behind the bench, as well as the amount of work it takes to become a judge. "It's harder than people think," he said.

Ronda Colby, a court reporter, showed the children the "foreign language" she uses to transcribe court proceedings. They stood in line to see her type out her version of their names, with phonetic and shortened spellings. Colby explained how she uses different keystrokes to stand for different letters.

Kids and Judges Day was held in conjunction with the judicial district's Adoption Day. Alison Fallgatter of Steele completed her adoption of Will, a 1-year-old boy from Ethiopia, at the Burleigh County Courthouse. Fallgatter said she had a desire to have children and liked the idea of helping an orphan. She began the adoption process three years ago and brought Will from Ethiopia in May. "It was kind of a long and winding road, but all worth it," she said. "The paper pregnancy is a long one."

Patty Robinson, a social worker from Catholic Charities, said there are many more children in Ethiopia available for adoption, and several have been adopted by families in the Bismarck area. Parents who adopt are very determined, she said. "It's not easy to go through this process," she said.

Hagerty presided over the adoption, in which Fallgatter answered questions acknowledging that she would have the same parental rights to Will as would a natural parent.

"This is a good time for a judge," Hagerty said, smiling.

Jenny Michael
21 November 2009

http://www.bismarcktribune.com/news/local/article_74df7ae6-d657-11de-9cfe-001cc4c002e0.html

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AUSTRALIA

Two sides to the story of orphan care

The boys on the garbage truck called him ''Ossie the Muncher''. I have no idea what his surname was and probably never did. But I remember the reason for his nickname. It still gives me a pang.

There were some hard cases on the garbage run: among them a former detective, two ex-boxers and men who had done jail time. But there was only one ''Muncher''.

Ossie was older than most of the others. He was short and strong - and quiet, in that self-contained way of men who come from a harder place. And the nickname? ''He'll eat stuff out of the bins,'' one regular crewman told us rookies the first week. ''That's why he's called the Muncher.''

On cue, Ossie pawed through a bin, grabbed a piece of food and ate it with exaggerated gusto. ''Bloody bewdiful,'' he said sardonically. He knew he was a performing bear - though not one you'd tease. It was disgusting, funny and sad. Ossie had grown up in and out of boys' homes in the 1940s and had scrounged food scraps to survive.

Maybe he'd done it from hunger at first - but then it grew into a performance that gave him standing with other damaged kids, like swallowing lit cigarette butts. Maybe he just didn't care what people thought. Maybe, given he had a job, a family and a house, Ossie was a success story. Plenty of his contemporaries from orphanages and boys' homes had ended up in jail or dead. Both, in the case of the late Christopher Dale Flannery.

Flannery is still notorious. A good-looking lad from a broken family that produced a lawyer and a teacher, he got into trouble early - rifling handbags and wallets at parties was his specialty - and sent to the Morning Star boys' home at Mornington. The beauty of the old mansion contrasted with the cruelty of what went on there in the 1960s.

Flannery's distant cousin and co-offender, who also did time at Morning Star, recently told me of the beatings and sexual and mental abuse boys endured at the hands of a sadistic minority of staff. The cousin changed course and never went back inside. But Flannery plunged into a life of crime to become the standover man and hired killer depicted in various television dramas. Before he was murdered in 1985, he had reputedly killed a dozen people. But underneath the hitman's callous bravado was the brutalised boy who wet the bed and, years later, sometimes wept about the things done to him at Morning Star.

Jails are full of men and women who ''graduated'' from such places. Many had been put in church or state-run homes because they were orphaned or neglected. Some were sent from Britain in a grotesque attempt to help populate Australia with Anglo-Saxon ''orphans''. One such was a young Peter Walker, sent to a Balwyn orphanage before taking the well-worn path through reformatories to jail. He ended up escaping from Pentridge with Ronald Ryan in 1965, committing a cold-blooded murder while on the run, and avoided being hanged (as Ryan was) mainly because of his youth. Ryan, too, had grown up in homes after being neglected by alcoholic parents.

We can only guess what turned vulnerable children into hardened criminals. But ''guess'' is the right word, as there are two sides to the story of those we label with the catch-all name ''Forgotten Australians''.

Lost in the painful memories of thousands of survivors of such institutions are the stories of thousands more who do not look back in anger but with acceptance, if not gratitude.

The well-known artist Ivan Durrant and his six siblings were brought up in the Melbourne Orphanage because their young mother - seven babies by age 22 - was overwhelmed by poverty and an alcoholic husband suffering from serving as a teenage soldier in World War II. Durrant says he didn't enjoy being an ''orphan'' but that he shudders to think what might have happened had his life been any different. If an apology is due, he says, it is to his father and men like him who were shattered by war and left to fend for themselves. ''His life was ruined and, in a sense, so was my mother's, but not mine.''

It is a sentiment shared by others whose fractured lives were given a chance to mend in the relative stability of some institutions. An old schoolmate of this writer, Les Prout, is one of the ''old boys'' of Kilmany Boys Home, near Sale, and still grateful for the chance it gave him and his mates. Les and his brother went to Kilmany after his parents split in the 1960s. He describes the home as a haven from a dysfunctional life and recalls doing farm chores after school with the same affection he has for the respected farm manager, Bob Thomas, a proxy father to many boys.

Les won a scholarship to secondary school, became an all-round sportsman and a good student, studied accountancy and worked in a Melbourne bank before spending 30 years as a supermarket manager.

Work and family aside, he has been a stalwart of local sport in Gippsland, playing football ''too long'', cricket until he was 40, and now umpiring and administering local competitions. When The Age called him one night this week, he was at a cricket club meeting.

His has been, he says, a fortunate life. It's not the stuff that makes headlines but it should not be forgotten, either.

Andrew Rule
20 November 2009

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/two-sides-to-the-story-of-orphan-care-20091119-iota.html

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Area facing shortage in youth psychiatrists

Sometimes it may be difficult for a parent to understand when a child needs help and when a child is just being, well, a child. But when a child’s behavior or state of mind warrants help, parents, teachers and caregivers traditionally have turned to child and adolescent psychiatrists or other specialists who work to ensure children can be their best, mentally.

A continuing issue in the country, including Texas and Tarrant County, is the lack of child and adolescent psychiatrists, however. The few physicians who are trained in this subspecialty are in high demand while the number of children needing care increases, and mental health professionals say any health care reforms need to include mental health parity.

A September 2006 study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry used 2000 U.S. Census data to look at the number of child and adolescent psychiatrists in each state, and Texas had 6.5 of these physicians per 100,000 children in 2001, roughly the same rate as Illinois, Louisiana, Tennessee and Washington. The national average for 2001 was 8.67.

Another study, this one from the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health in May 2008, found 192 child psychiatrists in Texas in 2007.

“I think there are going to be fewer and fewer doctors,” said Dr. Carol Nati, who is board certified in child, adolescent and adult psychiatry. Nati is psychiatry clerkship director and assistant professor at the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, and she also sees patients at various locations, such as the JPS Health System adolescent inpatient unit, and through various organizations, like MHMR of Tarrant County. Because there is such a shortage, many specialists, like her, end up spread over many outlets to get care to as many children as possible. “I drive all over town to see these kids,” she said.

The shortage in child and adolescent psychiatrists has been coming for some time and will continue to increase due to a host of factors, some financial.

Dr. Joyce Elizabeth Mauk, president, CEO and medical director of the Child Study Center, recently hired a child and adolescent psychiatrist to join the staff at the center. Mauk, a neurodevelopmental pediatrician (a specialty that does have some overlap with the specialized psychiatrists), said there is still a stigma against mental illness and reimbursement rates from insurance companies are much lower than for medical illness. “It’s a shame we still have such horrible stigma about mental illness,” she said. “There is just not a family that is not touched by these disorders.”

Such low reimbursements means it is difficult for a physician to finish his or her medical training and then bring in enough income to pay off debts and keep a practice going, said Dr. M Christine Banner, medical director of child psychiatry at Cook Children’s. Medical students and young doctors can be reluctant to go into a specialty that almost automatically comes with financial worries, she said. “Most folks who pursue a medical degree have a pretty substantial debt by the end of their training . . . so if they also know going in that they’re faced with financial difficulties in terms of financial reimbursement, that’s certainly going to be a deterrent,” she said.

Cook Children’s and some other health care systems are willing to subsidize some of the most expensive programs, Banner said, which is a help for children who need the most care. The in-hospital program at Cook Children’s, for example, is expensive because children require 24-hour care in a health care facility and may have other complex medical issues as well. However, it’s not unusual for psychiatrists (including child and adolescent psychiatrists) who practice alone or in small groups to not accept insurance at all. A cash-only business makes it easier for the physician to make a living, Nati said, but can provide a roadblock to families and patients who need help but can’t afford to pay for it.

The 2006 study on the shortage of these specialized psychiatrists examined not only the rate of physicians per 100,000 children for each state but also the percentage of children in that state who live in poverty, and one in five Texas children were at or below the federal poverty line. The stresses of living in poverty may lead to an increased occurrence of mental illness, Nati said, and it almost certainly leads to a lack of access.

Referrals and wait times to see a child and adolescent psychiatrist can be lengthy, throwing up another roadblock to treatment. Pediatricians — the physicians most likely to see a child — are helping to fill some of the need for mental health services, said Lee LeGrice, executive director of the Mental Health Association of Tarrant County. “There’s no stigma attached to seeing your pediatrician,” LeGrice said.

Increasingly, pediatricians can assess whether a child has some common types of mental illness — like depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or autism — and pediatricians also can treat and manage some illnesses, LeGrice said. The complication comes when a condition is complicated by psychosocial factors, the age of the child or other influences, LeGrice said. Diagnosing and treating a child must take into account the family’s history and things like a lack of access due to low socioeconomic status. “Some of these conditions don’t fit in nice, neat little categories. They’re complex,” she said.

The complexity can come because physicians of all sorts can be reluctant to give a major, definitive diagnosis to a child because a disease can evolve as a child grows older and finally presents itself as something other than initially thought, Nati said. However, an equally worrisome thing to physicians is to not diagnose or recognize a condition and start treatment as soon as possible. Delays could exacerbate illness down the road, she said.

When it comes to attracting more physicians to child and adolescent psychiatry, offering equitable reimbursements for service and working to alleviate student debt are important steps. Increasing training opportunities also is important, Nati said.

The 2006 study found 742 child and adolescent psychiatry residents in the United States during the 2005-2006 school year. Ten years prior, there were 758, and the number had dipped as low as 655 nationwide during that time span.

Creating residency opportunities in areas that have a need, like Tarrant County, could help bring in and retain specialists, Nati said. “Most of the time when you train people locally, they often stay locally to practice,” she said. “So there is always a hope that in Tarrant County we will try to get a child and adolescent psychiatry program here.”

There are many more problems surrounding child and adolescent psychiatry, all of which will need to be addressed at some point in order to offer the best possible care to children.

It’s a field that can lead to early burnout, Mauk said, and child-specific research is still lagging behind adult psychiatry.

Banner pointed out that if children don’t have a medical home and regular pediatrician, then even those physicians can’t contribute toward a front-line management of mental illness.

There can be demographic issues and the small population of child and adolescent psychiatrists doesn’t necessary reflect the patient population, LeGrice said, pinpointing a local need for specialists who speak fluent Spanish.

When children present with physical ailments like stomachaches or headaches, Nati said, it may be caused by a mental worry or anxiety and not have a physical origin, complicating diagnosis.

All of the professionals agreed that one of the first steps to getting care to a child is a parent, teacher or caregiver to recognize something is unusual, such as a child having some issue that inhibits everyday life, and to seek out a medical professional. Mauk said she hopes any health care changes in the future will realize mental health is as crucial to well-being as physical health and that financial and educational support can be put in place on all levels to contribute to healthier — and happier — children.

“For years, mental health care has been carved out of health care,” she said.

Elizabeth Bassett
16 November 2009

http://www.fwbusinesspress.com/display.php?id=11401

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UK

Children in care given louder voice

Children in care should be allowed to take part in the same activities as others in their age group, such as having sleepovers at friends' houses, Children's Secretary Ed Balls has said.

He is writing to all 60,000 children in the care system to tell them about new rights to have their opinions taken into account before any major change in their life, ranging from being placed with a foster carer or moved to a different home to issues like pocket money, bedtimes and food. And he will demand an end to the practice of giving children a black bin-liner to carry their possessions when they are transferred between homes, insisting that proper luggage should be provided.

Complaints over sleepovers and bin-liners were raised when Government ministers met children in care as part of their reform programme for the system. Young people said they were missing out on events which their schoolfriends enjoyed because carers were unsure about the rules over how they spend their free time.

Mr Balls said: "I was horrified to learn that when children in the care system are moved between placements they are often given just a bin-bag to put their possessions into. I want these children and young people to be treated with the dignity and care that we afford our own children. "If a child or young person has to change placements during their time in their care, they must be given appropriate luggage. It might seem like a small step but it is a big and important gesture for the vulnerable children in our care to feel respected and loved.

"Children in the care system also tell me they are banned from sleepovers at trusted friend's houses and feel they miss out on occasions which are an integral part of growing up. Children in their care should be sharing the experiences of their peers wherever possible."

Mr Balls`s letter will be published on Monday alongside a report on progress since the 2007 launch of the Care Matters programme to improve the chances of vulnerable children and young people. In the two years since the launch, the number of children in care achieving good GCSEs has doubled and many more are going on to training and work - but Mr Balls insists: "This is not enough."
 

UK Press Assoiation
15 November 2009

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress/article/ALeqM5hqZcORlhjFDzPedpQgqf3sjvgYeg

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"Fantastic Mr. Fox": Better than Pixar

Wes Anderson's take on Roald Dahl is possibly the best movie about family, community and poultry thievery ever made.

There should be something incongruous about the sound of George Clooney's cashmere-flannel voice coming from the mouth of a somewhat rangy-looking fox in a country gent's corduroy suit: Why should a matinee idol suffer the indignation of being trapped in a puppet's body? But from the first minute of the Wes Anderson stop-motion-animated feature Fantastic Mr. Fox, Clooney is that creature, the genuinely fantastic Mr. Fox of the title, a rapscallion charmer who wears many hats: husband, father, newspaperman, chicken thief. It's one thing for an actor to feel comfortable in his own skin; it's another for him to feel completely at home in the body of a fake-fur and metal-armature vulpus vulpus. And yet Clooney's naturalism is of a piece with the joyous, marvelously detailed movie around him, adapted from Roald Dahl's novel with adventurousness and seemingly boundless love by Anderson and Noah Baumbach. Fantastic Mr. Fox is possibly the finest picture about family, community and poultry thievery ever made.

Early in Fantastic Mr. Fox, the youthful, wily Mr. Fox learns that Mrs. Fox (Meryl Streep) is pregnant. He vows to quit his life of crime and start making an honest living, the better to care for his new family. Fast-forward several fox years: Mr. Fox is now a newspaper reporter, and the dapper-yet-casual cords he used to wear appear to have been put in storage. Now his skinny arms, with their furry elbows, dangle from the awkwardly utilitarian short-sleeve shirts he now wears. Mrs. Fox is happy enough in the hole in the ground where the family now lives. But Mr. Fox wants more: He likes trees, grass, action. And so he leaves for work one day - first casting a baffled glance at the superhero-cape and pants-tucked-into-socks outfit his weirdo son, Ash (Jason Schwartzman), is wearing - and goes straight to see his lawyer, Badger (Bill Murray), to investigate the possibility of purchasing a new home beneath a shady tree.

Clearly, it's midlife-crisis time for Mr. Fox, who not only moves his family into that new home but reenters a life of crime, enlisting the help of a spacey possum, Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky), to infiltrate the fortresses of three very rich, and very mean, local farmers: Boggis (Robin Hurlstone), Bunce (Hugo Guinness) and, the nastiest of them all, Bean (Michael Gambon). Before long Mr. Fox's mild-mannered, yoga-enthusiast nephew, Kristofferson (Eric Anderson), a gifted natural athlete, is also reluctantly pulled into the act, to the annoyance of the scrawny, disaffected kit Ash, who yearns to be a star at something and feels he's good at nothing.

Dahl's novel is slim and exciting: It covers, in a very small number of pages, the Fox family's efforts to dig themselves deeper and deeper into the ground in order to escape the farmers, who have become obsessed with destroying them. Other woodland animals have also become displaced by the farmers' aggressive mania, and so Mr. Fox and his family, in addition to saving themselves, come to the aid of their homeless neighbors. They do this, of course, by stealing - this is, after all, a Roald Dahl story, with all the vaguely disreputable pleasures that implies.

There's a crotchety generosity to Dahl's work, too, which Anderson and Baumbach have captured perfectly here. To fill out a feature-length movie, they've had to expand upon and embroider Dahl's story, but they've done so without bloating the picture or overloading it. Fantastic Mr. Fox feels colloquial and modern: When we first meet Mrs. Fox, she's wearing an Indian-style tunic decorated with braid embroidery, a favorite hip-mom uniform among young mothers everywhere. And Mr. Fox, early in the film, explains apologetically, "I used to steal birds, but now I'm a newspaperman," perhaps a reflection not just on his lost, wild youth, but on the fact that he's moved on to a profession that's pretty much facing extinction itself.

But Fantastic Mr. Fox also shows a sense of protectiveness toward the past, largely because of the somewhat rough-looking, slightly jerky (by digital-animation standards, at least), folk-art-style stop-motion animation technique Anderson has chosen. The puppets, with their kind-of-crazy eyes and even crazier whorls of fur, capture the spirit, if not necessarily the specifics, of the cheerful, mildly insane Quentin Blake illustrations that accompany Dahl's text. Anderson and his team (including, of course, a large crew of animators, as well as production designer Nelson Lowry and director of photography Tristan Oliver) pay a great deal of attention to texture and movement: The animals' fur swirls every which way, in accordance with their movements; even Mr. Fox's suits were reportedly modeled on the corduroy and tweed ones Anderson himself favors. (The puppet makers went so far as to obtain fabric swatches from Anderson's tailor.)

Anderson also has a great deal of fun contrasting his fantasy foxes with their real-life counterparts in nature: His foxes walk and speak with the most elegant manners - it doesn't hurt that the structure of their legs makes it look as if they're walking on tiny high-heels. They hover over exquisitely prepared platters of food, savoring the delicate blend of aromas - and then descend upon them, suddenly realistically foxlike, snuffling and snarfling and sending food flying all over the place.

There's so much to look at, and to giggle over, in Fantastic Mr. Fox: It has style and wit and heart, without ever being overly whimsical, a trap Anderson has too often fallen into. Fantastic Mr. Fox could turn out to be the one movie Wes Anderson naysayers end up loving, and the one his loyal fans treat as a lesser accomplishment, a trifle. Anderson has always frustrated me: On the plus side, I can sense that he tries to work from the heart, and he certainly cares about craftsmanship. But nearly all of his movies, until now, have suffered from self-conscious quaintness, and their flat, homespun quirks have left me cold. Fantastic Mr. Fox is different: The story is a great canvas for Anderson's visual inventiveness (offering, for one thing, lots of opportunities for those cozy, dollhouse-style cross-section views he loves, showing various creatures going about their routine daily activities). It also revisits, in subtle and wonderful ways, many of Anderson's key themes, among them the prickly pleasures of being part of a jovial, like-minded community - or of a mismatched family. In one of the movie's loveliest moments, the cousins Ash and Kristofferson, unable to breach their differences, fume and argue in their cramped, shared bedroom. Unable to sleep, they creep out of their beds to watch a tabletop model train clickety-clack around its track in the darkness, momentarily distracted and enthralled by the blinking colored lights and the soothing, tinny whir of its engine.

I'm not sure I can explain why Anderson's trademark dry, clever patter seems less tortured, and so much funnier and more believable, when it's emerging from the mouths of animal puppets with scruffy, disarranged fur. But Fantastic Mr. Fox is one of the few recent movies I can think of that truly captures the vibe of a childhood spent largely with books. I'm not talking about the overrated notion of "being returned to a sense of childlike wonder," or anything like that. I'm talking about a movie that captures something even more intangible than that, the very texture of an experience: Looking at all the details in Fantastic Mr. Fox - the character's wayward whiskers, their little vests, the mansionette hideaways they've dug for themselves in the ground - brought back the quiet, intense joy I felt as a kid, first poring over illustrated details in picture books (the nooks and crannies of Beatrix Potter's rabbit warrens and mouse houses, for example) and later in the semi-fanciful, semi-naturalistic details to be found in Kenneth Grahame and A.A. Milne and Dahl.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is an intricately detailed and accomplished piece of work. (It amazes me that 2009 has brought us not just one but two dazzling stop-motion-animated pictures, the other being Henry Selick's gorgeous and spooky Coraline, adapted from Neil Gaiman's equally terrific children's novel.) And yet what's wonderful about it is how casual and free, how un-fussed-over, it feels. Anderson is clearly taking a stand against the strained realism (make that "so-called realism") of digital animation, up to and including the repellent motion-capture technology that has turned the once-fine filmmaker Robert Zemeckis into a zombie. And in the end, Anderson's picture is more wondrous in the ways that count, more palpably believable within its fantasy world, than anything Dreamworks and - yes, I'll say it - Pixar (with the notable exception of Brad Bird's projects) has come up with.

As a work of animation, and of art, Fantastic Mr. Fox is wily, clever and mischievous, without ever being too arch or knowing. It also has the distinct aura of something that's been made entirely by hand with care and affection - a few misshapen nubs here and there only add to the charm. Anderson has pulled off the most elusive of goals: He's made a nonchalant masterpiece, a movie that feels dog-eared and loved before it's even reached our hands.

Stephanie Zacharek
11 November 2009

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2009/11/11/fantastic_mr_fox/

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Broken border: The checkpoint conundrum

The Texas caseworker who took emergency custody of an abused child in the Rio Grande Valley found the first foster home she could: two hours north of home. But when she tried to cross an internal highway checkpoint – designed to stop illegal immigrants and drug traffickers who have slipped past the border – federal agents seized the child and detained her for transporting an undocumented minor. The child’s fate is unknown.

It’s not the first time Texas’ chain of inland border checkpoints has challenged the agency’s efforts to care for endangered children. The highway posts have created a border within a border, separating abused children in counties adjacent to Mexico from services north of the invisible line.

The strategy has made Texas Child Protective Services caseworkers more shrewd, seeking more foster families along the border, and finding ways to bring services to kids without moving them through the checkpoints.

“El Paso, Laredo, Del Rio, they feel the same thing: ‘We’ve got this child, and we can’t get anywhere,’” said Sandra Rodriguez, the Child Protective Services director who oversees all kids in custody in the Rio Grande Valley. “You have to pull back and say, ‘Let’s be creative. If you can’t get there, how can we bring it to you?’”

Despite remarkable effort, kids and their families are more or less locked down, child welfare advocates say. Caseworkers – who are required to care for children regardless of their immigration status – no longer move undocumented kids through checkpoints, regardless of what treatment they need. “They’re essentially cutting off those services that might be available to them in Houston or San Antonio,” said David Walding, executive director of the Bernardo Kohler Center, which advocates for immigrants in Texas. “It isolates rural communities along the border, which don’t generally have the best range of specialized medical procedures or mental health services.”

Hand-wringing over even having undocumented children in agency vehicles prompted Texas child welfare officials to issue a memo to federal border patrol agents, asking them not to take hasty action. The agency “is expressly authorized to provide services… without regard to the immigration status of the child or the child’s family,” the letter states.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said it’s their impression that CPS workers are reluctant to have undocumented kids in their custody, and “seem to prefer that federal authorities handle them.” They have asked CPS to notify them in advance when a caseworker with an undocumented child in custody may be approaching a checkpoint. They say they don’t have information on specific cases where caseworkers were detained and kids were taken into federal custody. “We can merely speculate that there was a breakdown in communication in notifying a checkpoint in advance,” said Mark Qualia, spokesman for the agency.

Whether a child ends up in state or federal custody can determine his or her fate in the U.S.

Many of the estimated 85,000 undocumented juveniles picked up by federal agents every year are returned to their home countries within a single day, particularly those from Mexico and Canada. Bi-national agreements with those countries mean child refugees are rarely given a court hearing or reunited with family members in the U.S. State caseworkers, meanwhile, work to reunite families in Texas, and only send kids back to their home country if that’s the only place a qualified adult can care for them.

Rodriguez said Texas caseworkers have done well building the network of foster families in the Valley, and getting care providers to drive in from across the state for children’s appointments. Her region, home to four or five highway checkpoints at any given time, recently received a new children’s hospital and two psychiatric facilities, both of which have cut down on the need to travel through checkpoints for care. But undocumented kids who need to travel – either for services or for court hearings – are often out of luck. The transportation problems aren’t limited to Texas’ 18 permanent highway checkpoints, most of them between 25 and 100 miles from the border. When a caseworker in the Rio Grande Valley tried to fly a severely emotionally disturbed girl to a Houston care facility, border patrol officers stopped them at the airport. They detained the worker and took the undocumented girl into federal custody. It’s unclear what happened to the girl.

Caseworkers are loath to transport even documented youth through checkpoints, because their relatives so often are undocumented. Family visits are mandatory for parents to regain custody of their youth – and won’t happen if undocumented parents have to risk highway checkpoints. “How are you going to hold it against a mother if she can’t get through the checkpoint to visit her child?” asked Selina Mireles, a family law attorney in Laredo. “It doesn’t give them much justice, as far as their children are concerned.”

Emily Ramshaw
10 November 2009

http://www.themonitor.com/articles/austin-32438-border-broken.html

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Children raised on the 'Street'

The goofiness of Grover and the undeniable sweetness of Elmo. The innocence of Big Bird and even the moroseness of Oscar the Grouch.

These ageless characters and their peculiarities stake claim to a special place in the hearts of children and, maybe even more importantly, have been informal educators of the world's youth for generations. "Sesame Street" will celebrate its 40th anniversary Tuesday, exactly four decades from the day the show first aired on PBS. And while the "Sesame Street" brand has evolved over that time, its wholesome values and effective educational tools are as relevant as ever.

Inside the Barbarito & Beyers Preschool in Mays Landing on Friday, the children were unaware that their Sesame Street "friends" were about to celebrate a milestone birthday. The children were too busy improving their problem-solving skills by putting together Sesame Street-themed puzzles, expressing their creativity by making Big Bird crafts and having their imagination captured by stories from a variety of "Sesame Street" books.

Barbarito and Beyers - which has six locations throughout Atlantic and Cape May counties - has incorporated the "Sesame Street" brand in one way or another since it opened its first center in 1979. "By then, Sesame Street was already seen as a standard for educating children. It's like a little U.N., something that kids of all ages and from all over the world can identify with," said Bill Beyers, who owns Barbarito and Beyers with his wife, Janice Barbarito.

Beyers said children identify with the Sesame Street puppets similarly to how they relate to animals. "There is a commonality for them when they are dealing with creatures, such as small animals, or in this case, 'Sesame Street' characters. They look at them as being more innocent, not authority figures," Beyers said. "It's a lot easier to motivate someone to learn when they can relate to something."

According to a 1970 study released by the Educational Testing Service of Princeton, "Sesame Street" improved the cognitive skills of underprivileged children who watched it regularly by as much as 62 percent.

Mary Jane Coster teaches infants ages 6 weeks to 16 months at the AtlantiCare Kids Child Care and Early Learning Center in Galloway Township. As a mother of seven children, Coster said "Sesame Street" was a valuable educational tool of which her now-adult children are still fond. But Coster said that over the years, the "Sesame Street" brand has been able to adapt to accommodate parents wary of plopping their children in front of a television all day. She said the brand provided child care facilities such as AtlantiCare Kids with toys that help children develop their motors skill, music albums that help them with rhythm and movement, and books that encourage them to learn about shapes, colors, numbers and the alphabet.

The "Sesame Street" characters on the diapers the school uses also prove to be a conversation piece for children while they are getting changed, she said. "I think the bright colors and the music draws in a lot of the children," Coster said. "The alphabet and numbers are always presented in different ways, and I think the talking characters are particularly inviting for children."

AtlantiCare also incorporates the "Sesame Street" brand in other ways.

Rosalind Norrell-Nance, director of the AtlantiCare Behavioral Health Atlantic City Family Centers, said that program uses "Sesame Street" materials throughout the year and that children as old as third grade still enjoy working with "Sesame Street" materials such as videos and computer software. The center has even brought the children and teenagers in its summer camp to visit the Sesame Place amusement park in Langhorne, Pa. And AtlantiCare's Center for Community Health uses the "Health Habits for Life" program developed by Nemours Health and Prevention Services and KidsHealth, which uses "Sesame Street" characters to help promote healthy eating and physical activity in preschoolers.

But the valuable lessons that "Sesame Street" has provided over the years extend beyond cognitive development and healthy living.

The program introduced children to the reality of death with the groundbreaking episode "Farewell, Mr. Hooper" that aired in 1983 following the death of Will Lee, who played Jewish shopkeeper Mr. Hooper. It tackled adoption when Gina, a single-mom veterinarian played by Alison Bartlett-O'Reilly, adopted a baby boy from Guatemala. And it has been a longstanding champion for cultural diversity, with most of it human cast representing different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds.

"It was ahead of its time with introducing children to different races and classes," said Clint Beyers, 27, who is a director for his parents' preschools. "Even the puppets come from different backgrounds, where a character like Oscar the Grouch, who lives in a garbage can, gets along with Big Bird. And for that to happen at such an early age will help them to be more open-minded when they get older."

Lessons like these are what have educators confident that "Sesame Street" will still be relevant in another 40 years.

"Every once in a while, you meet someone who seems to have it all together, who can endure, no matter what," Bill Beyers said. "'Sesame Street' is like one of those people. It's just a winning package."

Robert Spahr
8 November 2009

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/press/atlantic/article_c6efc392-d9a5-51cd-979c-d155ccb3bcc9.html

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If your child needs help talk to someone at school

One of the best parts of working in a school, is being able to walk alongside families during the good times and the not-so-good times. This might seem a strange thing to say. Who wants to be around when the tough times are happening? And yet, equally strangely, teachers, psychologists, the police, and doctors, actually do.

It is easy to raise a child when things are going well. There is oil in the machinery, layered between the cogs. Life is relatively smooth. Days roll onwards, character develops, we admire the decisions our young people make, and we applaud their friendships. Everything is enjoyable and relatively relaxed. We are good parents after all! It is easy to bask in the reflected glories of a contented, hard working, friendly, well adapted child.

When things get tough, or illness strikes, or life is not so straightforward, parents can be left feeling adrift. Attitudes shift, tensions mount, and whatever thin grasp of control we may have had, quickly feels illusionary. We look for answers, quick explanations, friendship groups that have a negative influence, teachers who don’t understand anything but accept the knowledge that our child, at this time, is struggling.

Sometimes parents get angry with their child, not understanding why they are going off the rails, being rude, or acting out. And more often than not, parents get defensive of their children, bristling at any suggestion of poor behaviour, or that things are amiss. By getting defensive, or perhaps by being too proud, we miss the outstretched hands of help that are around most children these days. Teachers want to help. It’s what we do. There is no judgment in a teenager struggling with sickness, or with friendship challenges. These are normal events and they happen.

I have a few opportunities to liaise with the local police from time to time. I have never failed to be impressed by their desire to protect the dignity of young people who make mistakes. While they will not accept breaking the law, their aim is to get children back into school, functional, happy and going from strength to strength. Doctors and psychologists I’ve spoken to, after getting permission to share information, come up with strategies and plans that they can share with the school. Schools can liaise with other health care providers to ensure expectations are realistic, and that outcomes are what we hoped.

I know that sometimes it is hard to ask for help. It may seem like we’ve failed as parents. It may be that parents are private people and dont want information shared. It may be a fear that telling will see a child labelled in a less-than-helpful way. And yet, people who going into teaching, or police-youth liaison work, or psychology or medicine, are rarely there to label for the sake of labelling, or to box for the sake of boxing. They just want to help, and knowledge really helps. Parents are hugely knowledgeable about their children, and together we can work on ways of protecting them, and helping them through the tough times.

I have been in situations where my lack of knowledge of a child has severely jeopardised my care of them. I have the responsibility but no knowledge. And I don’t even know what I don’t know. When I speak with parents, it is usually fear that restrains them from briefing the school. Fear of letting a school know about epilepsy or depression, or family breakdown can negatively impact on a child because we blissfully teach on, without making allowances for their individual situations.

When times are tough, I’d encourage to you talk to someone at the school. We want to know so we can help. Not in a cloying, group hug kind of way, but in a pragmatic, and focused way. To make it easier for you to just be the parent, and to support and love your child. We want to know so we can map and plan a strategy that will help. We’ll tweak when it isn’t perfect, and get advice from those who know more than we do. But we do need to know if there is something going on in your child’s world that is too tough for you to handle alone.

Briony Scott
5 November 2009

http://cumberland-courier.whereilive.com.au/your-news/story/if-your-child-needs-help-talk-to-someone-at-school/

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CHILE

Teen pregnancy, a problem that won’t go away

Chile currently stands out for its spectacular progress in a number of health indicators, including maternal and child mortality and chronic malnutrition. But these successes obscure an acute social problem that refuses to yield: the steady rise in the number of teenage mothers.

"It’s hard to get up the nerve to talk to your parents or teachers about sex; it’s embarrassing. And you can’t just go to a clinic and ask for birth control, because everyone there knows you," Maura Escobar, a Chilean girl who gave birth four months ago at the age of 15, told IPS. When she discovered she was pregnant, she tried desperately to self-induce an abortion. She drank herbal concoctions, took martial art classes and even considered buying misoprostol, known as the "abortion pill." But she had no money. When she was in her fifth month, a friend took her to Chile Unido, a private non-profit foundation that provides assistance to women with unwanted pregnancies, to prevent them from having an abortion.

This South American nation is one of the few countries in the world where abortion is illegal under any circumstances, even when the mother’s life is at risk.

Near the end of her pregnancy, Escobar suffered complications for which she was hospitalised, and her daughter was born premature.

Escobar’s story is far from unique, it is repeated over and over again in Chile and the rest of Latin America, the region with one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the world. Of the total number of live births in Chile, almost 15 percent are to mothers under 19. Most of these young women are from the lowest socioeconomic sectors.

"These women are forced to change their life plans; they have little chance of finishing their studies or of working, because most have to stay home to care for their babies, unlike teenage fathers," IPS Claudia Dides, director of the Gender and Equity Programme of the Chilean chapter of the Latin American School of Social Sciences (FLACSO), told IPS. In addition to putting their health at risk, being a mother before the age of 19 perpetuates poverty and gender inequalities, experts says.

In La Pintana, a shantytown on the outskirts of Santiago, there were 80.9 teenage births per 1,000 girls aged 15 to 19 in 2006, compared to only 6.8 births in that same age range in the affluent suburb of Vitacura, which doubles La Pintana in the Human Development Index, in terms of income.

A joint study by FLACSO and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) identified 10 sexual and reproductive health challenges in Chile in the framework of the Action Plan adopted at the 1994 Cairo International Conference on Population and Development, and the 2000 U.N. Millennium Development Goals agreed on by 189 nations.

"The first challenge deals precisely with teenage pregnancy," Dides said. The other challenges refer to lack of sex education and inadequate sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services for young people, an increase in sexually-transmitted infections among teenagers, and absence of abortion statistics. Other problems identified include difficulties in accessing and delivering contraception, lack of ethnic considerations in the design of SRH and HIV/AIDS programmes, and low participation of men in reproductive care.

Pervasive teenage pregnancy
From 2000 to 2005, the number of live births in the country dropped from 248,694 to 230,831, in line with the ageing of the population. But the adolescent fertility rate in this country of 16 million people has not gone down at the same pace as that of women over 19. The problem is particularly alarming among girls under 15. Between 1995 and 2005, the maternity rate in the 15-to-19 age group dropped by 9.5 percent, while in the 20-to-24 age group it fell by 30.6 percent. But the birth rate for girls under 15 per 1,000 live births was reduced less than one percentage point, from 4.2 to 4.1, in that same period.

In absolute terms, at the start of this decade, 1,054 children were born of mothers under 15 and 39,216 of mothers in the 15-19 age range. These figures declined steadily until 2004, when they stood at 906 and 33,522 births, respectively, only to begin climbing again after that year. In 2005, there were 953 births among 10-to-14 year-olds, and almost the same number (954) the following year.

The same upward trend was observed in the 15-19 age range, with 35,143 births registered in 2005 and 36,819 in 2006.

A matter of political will
Forty different studies on teenage pregnancy were conducted in Chile from 1991 to 2007. "We have the scientific evidence necessary to make policy decisions," Dides said. Experts agree that the problem is linked to low contraceptive use, especially in poor sectors, to the absence or inadequacy of sex education, and to a lack of adolescent-friendly health services.

A recent major initiative by the government is the Sex and Relationship Education Participatory Action Plan (PlanEsa) included in the health policies for the 2005-2010 period, which is aimed at involving school authorities, teachers, parents and students in efforts to help kids make informed decisions about sex. Education Ministry sources told IPS that the goals set by PlanEsa are being met.

But Dides has a different view. "A number of programmes dealing with teenage sexuality have been introduced since 1993, but none has succeeded in implementing a lasting public policy. They don’t go beyond small pilot trials that depend on the political will of the minister of the moment," she said. According to this expert, the Education Ministry "has been a bastion of conservative thinking in sex education matters. I’d even venture that (ministry authorities) have been remiss in their duty to Chile’s young people, because of their ideological beliefs."

Since the return to democracy in 1990, following 17 years of military dictatorship, Chile has been governed by the centre-left coalition Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia, which includes the conservative Christian Democrat Party.

Starting in 2010, the Education Ministry will also promote "a dialogue involving experts, teacher training institutions and organisations involved with sex and relationship education" to define an "educational strategy" in this area, ministry spokespersons told IPS. It will also seek to improve coordination with the Health Ministry to achieve more effective interventions at the local level. But with the government of socialist President Michelle Bachelet - a firm promoter of progressive social and gender-sensitive policies - coming to an end in March 2010, the future seems uncertain.

Making spaces available
A common complaint voiced by the young girls who turn to the University of Chile Teenage Reproductive Health and Integral Development Centre for help and advice is that they can’t talk to their parents about sex, the centre’s assistant director, Electra González, a social worker with 28 years of experience, told IPS.

So any precautions these girls take depend solely on how independent they are and whatever information they’ve been able to obtain on their own, González said. "We need to have appropriate services for teenagers and young people, services that provide quality health care that is specially designed for them, because, as several studies have shown, young girls always end up going where their moms and grandmothers go, and that’s a problem," Dides noted.

A good step in this direction are the "Teen-Friendly Units" opening up this year in primary health care facilities, staffed by birth attendants, psychologists and social workers. The same teams working in these units are also reaching out to the community and going out to work in the field, Paz Robledo, head of the Health Ministry's Adolescent and Youth Health Programme, told IPS. The Teen-Friendly Units were developed under the 2008-2015 National Health Policy for Adolescents and Youth. Fifty-four units were created this year alone in 54 communities, and the budget to establish 277 new centres in 2010 is currently under discussion.

Meanwhile, Congress has delayed consideration of a bill dealing with fertility planning information, guidance and health care, submitted by Bachelet with the aim of guaranteeing free, confidential delivery of birth control, including emergency contraceptives, to all girls and women above the age of 14.

This responds to a 2008 Constitutional Court ruling that banned distribution of the so-called ‘morning after’ pill in public health services, upholding an appeal filed by conservative legislators against a 2007 presidential decree.

According to Robledo, the country has to address the needs of its almost 4.3 million teenagers and young people, who represent over 25 percent of the population. "What do we want from and for our young people and adolescents? What is the most efficient way of coordinating efforts among the various sectors of the state towards providing adequate social protection for this sector of the population?" and how many resources should be invested in these tasks are all issues that Robledo feels should be discussed by society.

Maura Escobar is "very hopeful" about her future, but unfortunately her case is an exception. She now has her mother’s full support, she’s gone back to school, and while she’s lost all contact with the baby’s father - a young man of 23 - she’s confident that she and her baby are going to be just fine. One thing’s for certain, though: her "life has changed for ever," she tells IPS as she holds her daughter in her arms.

Daniela Estrada
2 November 2009

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=49106

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NORWICH, UK

Inspirational tales of city youngsters

Young people often get a bad press, but inspiring city youngsters have been nominated for an award for the work they have been doing in their community. Norwich teenagers Saul Watson, Jenna Painter and Amadu Camara have been nominated for the May Gurney Young People of the Year (YOPEY) awards. The awards, being held in Norfolk for the first time, recognise young people who go the extra mile to help their community and offer a £1,000 cash prize.

Saul, of Valley Road, Costessey, was put forward by Sallie Boyd, a director of Connects and Co, who described him as an “amazing” young person and a “credit” to his family and the charity. The 16-year-old has helped out his dad Dave at home since he was 10 after his mum, Linda, had a stroke. He cooks, cleans, does various jobs around the house, helps his mum with personal care and keeps a watchful eye on his sister Carenza. He is also a cadet at Connects and Co, which is based in Catton Grove Community Centre and supports about 100 carers aged four to 14, and helps a boy with special needs. Ms Boyd said: “Saul has a wonderful, strong, caring character even though he's sensitive. He's very tuned in to the needs of people around him.”

Meanwhile, Jenna, 17, from Sprowston who is a pupil at Kett Sixth Form College, part of Sprowston High School, has been nominated in recognition of the work she does for Hallswood Animal Sanctuary in Stratton Strawless. She started volunteering at the animal centre when she was just 14 and, as well as working there all day on Saturdays, she helps other volunteers and takes part in fundraising events to raise money for the sanctuary.

The teen also volunteers at Sprowston Junior School and helped tackle a bullying issue involving a friend from school. He mum Sue, who put Jenna forward for the award, said: “She works her socks off in the sanctuary, which is her main interest. She loves the animals and is very caring.”

Amandu Camara is also in the running for the £1,000 award. The youth, who arrived at Easthills Residential Home, Costessey in 2005, had a history of abuse and neglect. It is thought he is about 17 years old and may have been born in Portugal or Africa. The Easthills Road home has become a sanctuary for Amadu over the last four years and now he helps other children and young people deal with similar issues.

Darren Wright, his social worker, said: “It is hard for anyone to understand what Amadu goes through on a daily basis - I and the other staff have never known a young person with such a complex case. He is a young man with little personal narrative, who has an uncertain future in this country due to complexities surrounding his immigration issues. He is even uncertain of his age. Despite all these drawbacks, Amadu has achieved beyond expectation.”

Elsewhere, Marcus Brown from Caister, who volunteers at the lifeboat station, Revolution Skate Squad in Yarmouth, who helped get their £160,000 skate park, and brothers Ashley, Nathan and Bradley Powell, of Abbeydale in Lowestoft, have been nominated.

Katy Scotter
31 October 2009

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