October 2009

Who cares that teens are homeless?

Kaitlin Nelson seems to have what it takes to succeed: drive, introspection, responsibility. She survived a drug-infested childhood home, then parental breakup and poverty. She learned to juggle studies and work, graduated from high school. Even as her sister, according to Kaitlin, was shuffled around and raped by a foster father, Kaitlin dodged those bullets.

Still, at 19, she is one of 10,000 Iowa teens who are homeless. In her words, "Every day is a constant battle." We could say children like her fell through the cracks. But with 1.35 million of them homeless in the United States, it's more like craters.

When Kaitlin had her gallbladder removed, she went straight from the hospital into a homeless shelter. She knows the sting of strangers' looks about grungy clothes that were someone else's discards. "We don't want to look homeless," says Kaitlin. "We just want to be normal."

I was introduced to Kaitlin at the Iowa Homeless Youth Center's downtown Des Moines headquarters after I asked to meet some of the kids behind the statistics. Moved and shocked by the narratives in a new book, From a Growing Community, Iowa's Homeless Youth  - a compilation of letters by young people  - I went looking for the solution, the change in policy or programming that's been overlooked.

We know how to respond to mobilizations for particular causes: A walk for cancer, a check to a flood relief, a pint of blood for a blood drive. At Reggie's Sleepout yesterday, for the fourth year, people planned to raise money and awareness about homeless youth. Yet when you donate to science, it's in hopes of finding a cure to a disease. Even as we donate to shelters and food pantries to help mitigate the effects of homelessness, we seem unable to fix the problem at its source.

Teenagers become homeless because they fled or were shut out of an abusive or dysfunctional home. Because they're addicted or mentally ill. Because their parents threw them out for being gay. And because, like the older homeless population, they just can't afford a place to live. So they crash in temporary shelters, on a friend's couch or under a bridge. They move around without money or papers to prove their citizenship to get hired. They are easy prey for exploitation.

Running at 14
"Steph," of Iowa City (a pseudonym from the book), grew up watching her stepfather get drunk and beat her mother. Police would come and take him away and her mother would promise not to put the kids through that again. "Then, a couple days later, she'd go back to him and it'd happen again." At 14, when Steph couldn't take any more of her stepfather's verbal and physical abuse of her, she began running away. Once, it was after he threw a can of hair spray at her head, angry that someone had finished a bag of potato chips.

"Finally the Department of Human Services realized there was a problem," she wrote. They put her in a shelter for runaways. She ran away from that, with the help of her "best friend," who picked her up, drove her to a country road and raped her, leaving her to walk 23 miles to the nearest town. When she wrote this, she was in a shelter again, using drugs.

Mom splits forever
This is how "Chelsea" came to homelessness: Her mother was a prostitute, raised in a Russian orphanage and selling sex at 16. Her father was a bouncer at a club and an alcoholic. Chelsea last saw her mom when she was 6. The woman was bloodied up by a bunch of men she'd brought home from the club where she was a stripper, and fled the house.

Chelsea moved in with her dad. She found that being a good kid didn't serve her well so, by sixth grade, she was smoking pot, getting drunk and running away. By 12, she was in juvenile detention for stealing a car. Authorities returned her to her alcoholic father on her release. "I just couldn't understand why they kept putting me back with my dad," she wrote. By 17, she'd been in detention centers 17 times and staying in different places, including the trailer of a 30-year-old man who had more than a dozen runaway girls on his floor and bought them alcohol. When she wrote, she was pregnant and on meth.

"James" was introduced to meth at 11 by his father's friends. "John" and his family have moved around his whole life, lived in a trailer with holes in the floor, no water and no heat. His mother is on disability, and his father earns minimum wage doing hotel banquet work. Their modest income doesn't cover rent or food, much less deodorant. "I don't want to go to school stinking," he wrote. He also wrote, "Every day, it seems, gets a little harder to live."

Dirty little secrets
These are a civilized society's dirty little secrets: A boy has to go to school smelly. A girl gets raped by her foster father. A man assaults his stepdaughter over potato chips.

Kaitlin's current home is Buchanan House, a shelter for youth in transition, where she can stay and get services for two years. She has some adults she trusts now, including her father, who went through rehab, and stepmother. She works as a supermarket cashier and plans to study culinary arts. "As long as I keep strong and do what I have to do, it's going to be OK," she says. The longer kids continue to get services, including after they age out of foster care, the better their chances of becoming self-sufficient, says Jim McWeeny, coordinator for Iowa Homeless Youth Centers.

Advocates propose everything from raising the dropout age to 18 to funding more shelter beds to reducing waits to get into substance-abuse treatment, which may get dramatically worse under proposed budget cuts. But from the kids themselves, what you hear most is a yearning for adults who will guide and care about them and hold them accountable.

Mentors make a difference
That made all the difference to Andrew Allen. Allen, 31, is an icon in the streets. First arrested at 10 on felony burglary charges, he later was committed to a psych ward and, at 17, was busted for driving drunk. Now he runs the Principal Foundation's charitable-giving program and sits on the homeless youth board. He attributes his professional success to a few well-connected professionals who mentored him weekly. Now he does the same and wants all homeless kids to have that chance. But Big Brothers and Big Sisters has a 250- to 300-kid waiting list.

You could get so overwhelmed by the magnitude of the problem that you do nothing. After all, how do you prevent people who aren't prepared to raise children from having them? How do you solve whatever drives cycles of drug addiction and abuse? How do you create jobs? Maybe you can't do all that but you can still change a kid's life by being there, as a role model or an ally  - "even coming to the house, sitting and talking to us, bringing a cooked meal, giving us a ride to the doctor's appointment," Kaitlin said.

The first step is acknowledging the scandalous fact that 10,000 Iowa children have no stable roof over their heads or parents to go home to at night  - and that many wonder if society forgot about them.

Rekha Basu
29 October 2009

http://www.coshoctontribune.com/article/20091029/OPINION02/910290314/Who-cares-that-teens-are-homeless

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China looks at Dutch youth policies

The Dutch youth and family minister spoke before an audience of Asian family planning experts, abortion activists and gynaecologists. He was invited because China is looking to the Dutch youth policies for inspiration.

Jia Yug gets a couple of coins for carrying packages at the bus station. That will buy him noodles with tomato sauce. "It tastes much better than what I get at home, because grandma is too ill to cook." His partially demented grandmother is the only family the 12-year-old boy has. "So I almost never used to go home. The teachers at school didn't miss me either. They said they didn't care whether or not I turned up to school." The next logical step was to join other runaways in a park.

Jia Yun is a Chinese street kid. His bravado is still endearing, but it won't be long before a boy like him gets on the wrong path. Although he will probably be alright, now that volunteers have brought him to the Guangai home for runaways.

Criminal
"There is only one thing that is important to us: that is to give them a home and an education, so that they stay out of prison. Every child we take in is one less criminal later," says the home’s deputy manager Wang Xianlong. He does this without government subsidies; the whole project is run on 100 percent charity. Minister André Rouvoet is visibly impressed: "I think very good work is being done with very little means. And I take my hat off to the project.”

He has just had lunch with students and visited an international school, but the Guangai project has given him an insight into the severe problems faced by Deputy Minister of the Population and Family Planning Commission, Zhao Baige.

1.5 million runaways
The 105 neglected children in the project are just the top of the iceberg; China is believed to have more than 1.5 million runaways, not to mention child labour, child trafficking, a high abortion rate among teenagers, and high divorce rates. And there is no government assistance for young people; projects like Guangai are set up by charitable private individuals.

"Our system does not have social services or youth welfare work. We have only just added women’s and children’s rights to our human rights charter. It is a start, but now we are looking for suitable policies," says Zhao Baige. That's why the Chinese have invited the Dutch youth and family minister, not because of Mr Rouvoet’s personal achievements, but because the Netherlands has a good track record in the area of youth work.

"They are interested in insights which can be included in their own policies and approach. Not just policies geared to helping children with problems, but also ones which improve child-rearing, education and training. They want to take a broader view of youth problems than they are used to traditionally. For instance by looking into how to involve the family or network in resolving problems."

The minister has implicitly criticised China’s strict family policies, by saying parents in the Netherlands have the freedom to choose how many children they have and how they want to bring up their children.

From poverty to wealth
China is changing from a country of poverty to one of wealth. It used to be inward looking, but the country has now turned its attention to international issues. It has transformed from being a backward plan economy to a market economy. And all these changes have gone so swiftly that nobody pays attention to a little girl like Cai Huihui and her mother, who has psychiatric problems. Mother and daughter roamed the streets for many years, eating from rubbish bins and sleeping under bridges. Cai Huihui used to hate that life. "When I slept on the streets at night, I was always afraid of bad people."

Cabbage plants
Volunteers took her off the streets. She can often be found in the project's vegetable garden. "I like looking at the little cabbage plants." Cai Huihui is recovering, laughs Wang.

In recent years, more and more council officials from outside Beijing have come to him with children like Cai Huihui. They want him to build Guangai schools in other provinces. "First we have to make sure we can take in more children here. Beijing’s city council has given us a piece of land to build a new school. Hopefully then I will be able to take in more children, because at the moment I have to turn away the less serious cases."

Marije Vlaskamp
27 October 2009

http://www.expatica.com/nl/lifestyle_leisure/news_focus/China-looks-at-Dutch-youth-policies_14914.html

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Home at last

Nothing was safe from the mark of the mazik, her nickname meaning "little devil" in Yiddish, when she unleashed her creative energy. She drew in her milk, chalked on the sidewalk and glued with that "wonderful" paste, so wonderful she remembers wanting to eat it. "I was the despair of my mother the way I ran around," said Williams, a children's book author and winner of the 2009 NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature, a $25,000 prize awarded every other year and selected by a jury of literary peers.

Williams spoke, primarily to a crowd of librarians, about her life and several of her books Thursday afternoon at the Sam Noble Museum of Natural History with author Virginia Euwer Wolff, who nominated Williams for the prize.

Williams, best known for her book A Chair for My Mother, about a young girl, her mother and her grandmother saving spare change to buy an easy chair, received her award Wednesday night as part of OU's Neustadt Festival of International Literature and Culture, which showcases the talents of poets, musicians, filmmakers and authors from around the world and concludes Friday. At Wednesday evening's awards ceremony, Neustadt family members shared stories of reading Williams' books and of their children reading the books.

Williams, who referred to her family as rolling stones, said home is a prominent theme in her books. Her family, displaced by the Great Depression, became homeless, and her father was imprisoned for reasons 82-year-old Williams is still unsure of. Williams and her sister were sent to live in a Jewish children's home in San Francisco for a year, until the family relocated to New York.

"Living in the Great Depression, I didn't have, just as thousands didn't have, a home. It's something that's so shocking now. That is so basic. We were dislodged, my sister and I," she said as she reflected on this, murmuring toward the ceiling a list: home, not home, where is home, loss of home, burnt home. "Home is a major story in my life," she said.

Eventually, this story culminated into her book Amber was Brave, Essie was Smart,* which presents the portrait of two young sisters in a struggling family.

Hearing the back story behind Williams' books, like this one, was insightful, said Kay Lowry, library assistant at Blanchard Public Library. "To learn the inner most experiences of authors, and how they relate that to what they write, and hear how their experiences are tied to their characters, and other times they're not is always very interesting," said Lowry, who brought a copy of 'More, More, More,' Said the Baby for Williams to sign for her granddaughter Addison.

The Neustadt Festival continues Friday with a festival symposium featuring readings by the Jury for the 2010 Neustadt International Prize for Literature, a lecture by Williams and book signing and reception.

Nanette Light
23 October 2009

* Amber was Brave, Essie was Smart by Vera B. Williams is in our bookstore. (For readers aged 4-8)

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http://www.normantranscript.com/localnews/local_story_296011603

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CHICAGO

Some question future of stimulus-funded anti-violence programs

A new anti-violence plan from Chicago Public Schools may have a solid statistical base, but future funding is not so firm.

The murder of Derrion Albert in late September brought attention to a Chicago Public Schools program aimed at providing services including mentoring and part-time jobs to 200 students identified as being most likely to be shot. The idea is to intervene both in and out of school in the lives of these students, who, according to a probability model developed by the district, have a better than 20 percent chance of being shot.

Kenneth Trump, a school safety consultant based in Cleveland, said that while the district’s enthusiasm for data is admirable, identifying which students will be involved in violent acts is not the most pressing problem in solving school violence. “Most second grade teachers can identify those students who are 'at risk for violence,” said Trump. “The problem has always been, what do you do once they’re identified?”

Under the plan, identified students will have 24-hour access to a mentor, be placed in a job and get regular assessments by social workers and counselors. The families of these students will also be given access to some services.

But the future of the program is murky. Initially, federal stimulus money will pay for the plan. Chicago Public Schools received $368 million from the stimulus, which will be dispersed this year and next. After that money is gone, no more is promised. It is premature to discuss what may or may not happen without stimulus money, a CPS spokesperson said in an email.

Trump said that for programs that aim to intervene in every aspect of a student’s life, sustained funding is key. “The question is what’s sustainable. The resources being put forward today, will they still be there down the road? In most cases they’re not. We have roller-coaster public awareness, public policy and public funding,” Trump said.

David Cassel has more than a decade of experience trying to reduce youth violence in Chicago. He said that the lack of sustained funding not only threatens services, it erodes trust. “Any time you’re engaging disenfranchised people, like young people of color, when you stop providing services that were keeping them on the right track, not only do they lose the services, they become less confident in the system that’s there to help,” he said.

Cassel is the executive director of the Alliance of Local Service Organizations, a group that runs the CeaseFire program in Logan Square and Humboldt Park. CeaseFire aims to reduce shootings by connecting communities and designing anti-violence interventions. In the past, Cassel said, gaps in funding have led to his organization losing 20 to 30 clients at a time. The CeaseFire programs in Logan Square and Humboldt Park have yet to receive state funding this year, he said.

Chicago Public Schools face a projected budget deficit of $475 million in 2010 - the same year stimulus money will run out.

Chris Neary
21 October 2009

http://news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=142895

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Russians visit Pasadena's social services network

A group of Russian dignitaries toured Pasadena City Hall on Monday as part of a week-long visit aimed at gaining first-hand knowledge of American social services agencies. The delegation includes journalists, a government official, and a social service worker. The group will visit several child service agencies in the area this week, including Five Acres and Rosemary Children's Services.

The six-member delegation is here through the Open World Leadership Program, an initiative sponsored by the Library of Congress. The participants were all nominated to take part in the overseas trip, which ends Sunday. The Pasadena Rotary Club is hosting the group and paid for transportation expenses.

Tatyana Permyakova, the program's facilitator, said the group is primarily interested in seeing how social service agencies work in areas involving youth issues. The mission is to replicate successful programs in Barnaul, a Russian city of approximately 600,000 people, she said.

"The goal is to create public awareness of the growing problem with homeless children," Permyakova said. "The group is looking forward to seeing how the agencies here deal with foster care to homeless children."

Natalya Vladimirovna, a radio and television journalist, said her role during the visit is to create more public awareness about the plight suffered by children who don't have stable home lives or are homeless.

With her undergraduate degree in psychology, children's services has been an interest of hers, Vladimirovna said. The Russian social services system is vastly different from that of the United States, she said. "In Russia, the city, state and federal services are not connected, and we don't really have have any private organizations that deal with these issues," she said. "We want to see how it works here in the United States and develop a plan that can support the efforts of existing groups now."

Caroline An
19 October 2009

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_13594643

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NEBRASKA

Boys Town adding programs as 20th anniversary in Grand Island approaches

Boys Town Shelter in Grand Island has always been known for its short-term residential program for young people ages 10 through 18. But Boys Town is expanding its program, in large part because of the state of Nebraska's initiatives to reform its child welfare system.

In-Home Family Services started in August 2008 with two consultants, with the program now expanding to six consultants in addition to Jason Davis, who heads the program. The latest program, Foster Family Services, got its start on Oct. 1. That new program is being directed by Kim Anderson. She and her husband have been foster parents to 315 kids over the past 20 years. "We take only boys into our home," said Anderson, who said they specialize in boys who have drug or alcohol abuse problems or who have been involved with the Office of Juvenile Services.

Deb Hulinsky leads the assessment and short-term residential program, which is the original program operated by Boys Town in Grand Island. While Boys Town is now offering three distinct programs to serve young people and their families, all three have quite a bit of overlap, especially when it comes to the state's goal of having both a safe and permanent placement for young people.

Anderson said she would like to find more people who are willing to be foster parents. She said part of the revamped Foster Family Services program will include having more experienced foster parents mentor foster parents who have less experience. A bigger change is to have foster parents take the foster child to the home of his or her biological parents to help teach parenting skills to the biological parents. A lot of that teaching will be done through simple modeling of how foster parents interact with the foster child, Anderson said. In cases where alcohol or drug issues make it unsafe for the child to go to the biological parents' homes, the biological parents may go to the foster parents' home to see their child and learn parenting skills, Anderson said.

The goal of the foster care system is safe and permanent placement for the foster child. The preference is to have permanent placement with the biological parents, but an equally important goal is to have a safe placement for the child. When it's determined that a child cannot safely be reunited with his or her parents, then the child is placed in a guardianship or adoption situation.

Dave Reed, director of site operations for Boys Town in Grand Island, said the state is trying to make a good decision about placement on a faster timeline in order to try to reduce the number of children who are wards of the state.

One thing that has not changed about the system is that Child Protective Services typically is responsible for removing a child from a home that it considers unsafe and a judge must issue a court order if the child is to be placed in a foster home, Reed said. A judge must also issue an order reuniting a child with his biological parents, or putting a child into a guardianship or adoptive relationship. However, Boys and Girls Home of Kearney and the Alliance for Children and Families have contracted with the state of Nebraska to work with the foster children in Central Nebraska. Either Boys and Girls Home or the Alliance for Children and Families will refer young people to be in Boys Town Foster Family Services Program.

Foster Family Services is available to foster parents on a 24/7 basis.

Davis directs In-Home Family Services. He said that the program works with minors who are either on the verge of being placed in a foster home or have been in a foster home and are being reunited with their biological parents and family. Davis said there is about a 50-50 split between those two scenarios.

As the name says, the Boys Town employees in that program do in-home consulting not only with the child in question, but also the parents, who again may need to learn parenting skills or who may have issues of their own to deal with. Davis said consulting services may extend to siblings or a grandparent, aunt or any other relative who may be living in the home. He said In-Home Family Services often must deal with the entire family dynamic at play in a child's life. In-Home Family Services is available 24/7. Davis said a family might have a consultation scheduled for Monday and Wednesday, but if an intervening emergency pops up on Tuesday, the consultant can be called at any time of the day or night to deal with it. The consulting might be done over the phone, but it often involves a trip to the home. Again, Boys and Girls Home is responsible for referring minors and families who may need help from In-Home Family Services.

Boys Town's oldest program in Grand Island is its emergency shelter, which typically serves about 300 young people a year. Hulinsky said the program services young people between the ages of 10 and 18, with the majority falling between the ages of 13 and 16. About half the children are wards of the state, Hulinsky said. In one example, the shelter had the foster child for one day. The child had run away from the foster home and the state reunited the child with the biological family. Other times, foster homes have not worked out and a young person is waiting for placement in a long-term group home. The other half of children are private placements. Those might be initiated by the minor, the parents, a school counselor or a school resource officer, although the private placement must ultimately be approved by the parents.

The average length of stay is 14 days, although it can be shorter or longer. Kids from Grand Island continue to attend classes at school. The shelter has kids from other districts work on school work from their home school district. If a minor is not enrolled in school, he or she still does school work at the shelter. But the main emphasis is teaching children Boys Town Social Skills.

Reed said the reason the short-term program is effective is that families have reached a crisis. "Parents miss their kids. They want them back at home. The kids know they're not at home and they realize, "Umm, maybe I've crossed a line.'"

Anderson noted that the kids are not "bad kids. They're the kids who could be living next door."

"We're probably Grand Island's best kept secret," Hulinsky said. "I don't think people realize how much different a town this would be if we weren't here."

Open house planned
The Boys Town Shelter in Grand Island will celebrate its 20th anniversary with an open house from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Oct. 28. Invitations to the open house are mailed to select people in the Grand Island area, although the general public is welcome. The program for the 20th anniversary will begin at 4. Speakers are scheduled to be Sen. Mike Gloor of Grand Island and the Rev. Steven Boes, executive director of Boys Town.

Harold Reutter
17 October 2009

http://www.theindependent.com/articles/2009/10/17/news/local/10780378.txt

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Narrowing youth service gap hovers on a brink

"Sixteen and 17-year-olds are viewed as competent persons only when they are alleged to have committed a crime, become a soldier, enter the market as a selling agent of something or their bodies, or are freak athletes or entertainers."

Attendees at a recent conference on how well Canada applies "the best interests of the child" were given that quote to provoke discussion. I bet it succeeded.

Our society sends very mixed messages to adolescents. As was noted at that Toronto conference - at which our Child and Youth Advocate, Bernard Richard, was a keynote speaker - in some provinces, young people can get married at 16 without parental consent, but they need a parent's signature on school forms until they are 18.

Some of the reasons why we differentiate between adolescents and adults are valid. There are also valid questions as to whether those differentiations are in their best interests. Even when a young person is transitioning from a loving functional family to the adult world, society's thinking seems muddled as to their rights and responsibilities during the transition. In cases where there is conflict and dysfunction, and so, at-risk youth and unmet needs, that is where it becomes imperative that we produce better answers and clearer thinking.

In much of Canada, youth face a dramatic social services cutoff at the age of 16. As the "The Best Interests of the Children" conference concluded, children living independently before the age of maturity are a group in need of particular focus in Canada. An adolescent without any adult support has very different chances for success, compared to other children, and so Canadian social policies must help to level the playing field.

In New Brunswick, children already in care at age 16, receive government support well into early adulthood, including funding for post secondary education. However, those not in care by the time they are 16 are ineligible to obtain these services. For some youth, the right to leave home at 16, even without a government safety net, is a godsend. For others, this sudden legal freedom from parental intervention is catastrophic. Many youth end up "couch surfing" amongst friends. Young girls will find themselves in sexually exploitative relationships in exchange for a place to stay. As songstress Ani Difranco writes, self-preservation is a full-time occupation.

Front-line workers say one of the problems is invisibility: when youth are crashing on friends' couches, it's not seen as homelessness. Front-line workers also speak of youth being unaware of how to advocate for themselves. Girls particularly often struggle to assert themselves and fight for their rights since girls are in a society that expects them to play nice.

At 16, youth not only have the right to leave home, but can also refuse services, such as mental health or addiction services counseling. For some of these youth, whether or not to remain at home or consent to treatment are important decisions that demand perspective and foresight beyond their capacities. And for some, treatment and appropriate living arrangements will only be arranged and enforced after they have committed a crime, as part of a conditional discharge, probation or deferred custody order.

For those youth over 16 who want treatment or have been ordered to seek it, wait lists for services are long. If they can't get help when they decide they want it, many will abandon the idea. Even when the courts order treatment, agencies may decide whether or not they feel the youth needs the ordered service.

Once youth are 16, they can apply for social assistance but must undergo an assessment process that takes a few months, must have a permanent address, and must be attending school to receive the maximum amount. Front line workers speak of the problems some young people have in meeting this criteria: they can't get lodging without first having the money, and can't get money for lodging without an address.

In New Brunswick, some progress has been made in addressing the service-limbo for youth. Front line workers see a few beacons of hope. They hail the work being done by the province's Child and Youth Advocate, Bernard Richard. The reports he assembles are incisive.

Following the Advocate's important Connecting the Dots report on youth at risk last year, the provincial government pledged to enhance services for youths 16 to 19, including a youth-at-risk income supplement that reduces barriers to social services payments and a youth homelessness strategy.

There are a few transition homes or shelters specifically for youth, such as Chrysalis House and Moncton Youth Residence's Transitional Housing Program though in his first "report Card" on services, Bernard Richard noted that "transition homes and services for 16 to 18 year old continue to need much more effort".

In Prozac Nation, a groundbreaking memoir on youth depression, author Elizabeth Wurtzel opens with a quote from Marguerite Duras: "Very early in my life, it was too late." Everything should be possible if you are young. But some young people may feel that Duras says it like it is. It is up to us to answer their needs so that it is not really "too late."

Elsie Hambrook
15 November 2009

http://timestranscript.canadaeast.com/opinion/article/824769

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Make education foundation for life

Education is the key to giving every child an equal shot at success.

The ancient Greeks and Chinese were among the first to document the correlation between education and health. Rene Villerme wrote about these connections in 1820, and Evelyn Kitagawa documented it again in the 1970s when she merged census and death records. Let's face it: The better educated a population is, the healthier it is. Educational attainment is directly related to wealth, and we know for a fact that poorer people die younger and are sicker than richer people. In order to even the playing field, all of our young people need to have a strong educational foundation. That foundation is started at home with the most influential teachers a child will ever have: parents.
Education should be well on its way by kindergarten; it starts long before an infant can form a word or is able to draw a squiggle that eventually becomes a letter. It includes face-to-face conversations and book reading. Instead, many of our youngest citizens are baby-sat by the television, imprinting sometimes numbingly violent images and stereotypical rhetoric. When these children get to school they are often so far behind the starting line, many spend the next decade playing catch-up and giving up. A generation lost, cast into a perpetual cycle that assigns them to a spot below the federal poverty line and assigns them to higher risks of poor health outcomes exemplified by higher rates of debilitating illnesses.

Figures are grim
The recent Kids Count report highlighted Tennessee's infant mortality rate to be higher than rates in Poland, Slovakia, Bermuda and Chile. It showed that less than two-thirds of pregnant women receive adequate prenatal care; that our percentage of babies born too small (under 5 pounds, 8 ounces) has been creeping up; and that our teen birth rates have not seen the same declines as at the national level. It should not be a surprise given the correlation that one out of every four children are on the Women Infants and Children program or that the percentage of children in a family receiving food stamps has increased from 17 percent in 1999 to 28 percent in 2006. It should also not be surprising that the percentage of fourth-graders and eighth-graders scoring at or above the proficient level in reading and math has stayed consistently below the U.S. level.

Progress, however, is being made. In 2005 Tennessee's high school graduation rate hung its head at 57 percent, ranking the Volunteer State 48th. A report released this spring complimented Tennessee as one of the 12 states that made substantial gains in numbers of students graduating. From 2002 to 2006 the graduation rate increased to 72 percent, just short of the national average of 75 percent.

We still have a ways to go, but we are on the right track. If we as a community can embrace our children and collectively stress the importance of staying in school and achieving personal excellence, then our community will be healthier, wealthier and wiser.

Kimberlee Wyche-Etheridge
13 October 2009

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091013/OPINION01/910130315/1008

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Returning face of homelessness

As unemployment rate soars, the poor become more visible

Homelessness may not be as hip as health care, global warming or gay marriage in the hierarchy of social issues, but it's starting to reclaim its place in the public consciousness. The renewed focus is playing out locally on several fronts. Tomorrow, chart-topping singer-songwriter Jason Mraz, who lives in Oceanside, is helping raise money for homeless youths with a show in Chula Vista. A budding filmmaker, a group of entrepreneurs and an author, all with San Diego ties, have started projects to call more attention to homelessness.

“What you're seeing is individuals who didn't ever envision themselves being on the corner or on the verge of being homeless or living paycheck to paycheck — they're viewing that population under a different lens,” said Thom Reilly, director of the School of Social Work at San Diego State University.

These efforts are emerging against a backdrop of a rough economy and news coverage of tent cities rising across the country. There's even a new, $95 doll from the storied American Girl line named Gwen, whose manufactured back story is that she once lived in a car.

In San Diego, the City Council is struggling to settle on a site to provide a winter homeless shelter. “When it's out of people's minds and it's not in the press, people tend to forget about it,” said Herb Johnson, head of the San Diego Rescue Mission, a nonprofit homeless shelter and recovery center serving thousands since 1955.

That doesn't mean people are insensitive to the issue, said Walter Philips, head of San Diego Youth Services, a nonprofit that helps homeless children. “When things are running smoothly, their lives are going well, they don't come across the issue as much. They don't see it on the streets as much,” Philips said. “When things get worse, they tend to see it more often.” In recent years, many Americans actually saw less homelessness on their streets.

From 2005 to 2007, the national homeless population declined 12 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The latest figures show this decline leveled off last year with a dip of less than 1 percent. But in San Diego County, the homeless population increased about 13 percent over four years, according to the Regional Task Force on the Homeless. About 4,300 of the region's 7,800 homeless people live in the city of San Diego. Homeless numbers may be climbing here because of the area's warm, dry weather and the high cost of housing, SDSU's Reilly said. Experts predict that the number of people living on the streets or in emergency shelters will rise everywhere while unemployment remains high.

Despite the need, San Diego City Council members are reluctant to have a winter shelter in any of their districts. None of them took up Mayor Jerry Sanders' offer to name potential shelter locations in their districts, so his office chose 27 sites and asked the council to pick one by Tuesday. Part of any debate on sheltering the homeless is anxiety about litter, crime and sanitation.

Last week, as rain fell on dirty streets in San Diego's East Village, homeless people lined up against a fence to wait for an evening meal at God's Extended Hand. Coby Ruffin, 24, who lost his home when he lost his job as a Macy's sales representative, had a sweat shirt draped over his head. “What we call this is the bottoms,” Ruffin said.

Around the corner, Tommy Forrest, 54, whose glaucoma has left him unemployed since he lost a kitchen job last year at Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, was erecting a tent. In his wallet, he had a citation for unauthorized encampment that he got at the same spot a couple of weeks ago. Despite his aggravations, Forrest pointed to nearby places where he finds food, showers and bathrooms and said, “One thing about it, you can get comfortable in this position. I'm not trying to do that.”

People with all sorts of profiles — from fledgling companies to established musicians like Mraz — are lining up to help the Ruffins and Forrests of San Diego off the street. Stay Classy, a Web site company that helps charities raise money through social networking, sought out San Diego Youth Services about a year ago to help it raise $500,000. The goal is to open a short-term shelter for homeless 18- to 24-year-olds. Their campaign has raised about $70,000 so far. That total may be higher after this weekend. Mraz picked San Diego Youth Services as one of three charities whose fundraising he's trying to boost at the Chula Vista show tomorrow for 20,000 fans.

Recent film school graduate Giovanni Tartaglia, 23, is making a documentary on homelessness and plans to interview about 20 people on San Diego streets before producing a 15-minute film. Tartaglia lives in an East Village apartment close to where the homeless congregate. The 2004 San Diego High School graduate said he hopes to dispel myths about homelessness. “I see a lot of people that look at the homeless as not human,” he said. “They treat them, I don't want to say as animals, but without respect. I want to show the human and emotional side of them rather than what people really think — you know, bums on the street.” He embarked on his project late last month.
“Off to a good start,” Tartaglia wrote on his MySpace page. “I asked a homeless man if he'd like to be interviewed for my film and he asked where he can get some crystal meth ... wow.”

It's not just a younger generation that's promoting homeless causes. San Diego writer Lynn Vincent, 47, has helped the homeless for years. She has volunteered in shelters and handed out oranges and soap to people on the street.
She also has collaborated on two memoirs about an art dealer befriending a homeless man. The first memoir, Same Kind of Different as Me*, has spent 75 weeks on The New York Times best-seller lists. It spawned a second book last month, which continues the two men's story and includes tales of how the first book changed readers' lives and inspired social involvement. Vincent, who is helping Sarah Palin write her memoir, said Americans are now “kind of more aware that the line between poverty and affluence is a little more fluid than they thought.”

Johnson, of the San Diego Rescue Mission, said the focus on homelessness should help the cause, but the problem might never go away. “Until the American public decides they're going to be doing something with it, they're only going to be shuffling it to the dirtier, darker corners of their respective cities,” Johnson said.

Matthew T. Hall
10 October 2009

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/oct/10/returning-face-homelessness/

* Same kind of different as me by Sarah Palin is in our bookstore:

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Advocate sets facts straight about homelessness

A national advocate for homelessness told a crowd at Thiel College on Tuesday their idea of the typical homeless person is probably wrong. Most of the crowd at the Greenville college raised their hands when Diane Nilan asked if they thought a homeless person is often a grizzled man with drugs or alcohol living under a bridge.

Even though the United States is one of the richest countries, families with children make up a good portion of the homeless population, she said. “It absolutely tends to blow people’s minds,” Ms. Nilan said.

Ms. Nilan is the founder of HEAR US Inc., an Illinois-based organization that advocates for homeless children and teens. She sold her home and most of her belongings in 2005 to travel the country in a recreational vehicle, gathering stories from those people. Her documentary, “My Own Four Walls,” features those interviews, mainly from the back roads and non-urban areas of the country, not big cities. Ms. Nilan is on her fifth tour of the country and continues to meet youth willing to share their stories. “I am truly honored every time I see this film,” she said before showing a 20-minute clip.

Children of all ages spoke of how they became homeless because of hurricanes, fires, abandonment or when parents got into trouble with the law. “I was so mad I didn’t even care he was in jail,” a boy named Brad from Arkansas said of when his father got arrested for having a meth lab at their home.

Some of the children said they didn’t like living in homeless shelters because they’re crowded, full of strangers and have a lot of rules. Others spoke of school as a safe haven where their friends are, a situation made difficult if their family has to move. “School is everything to me,” Nathan of Pennsylvania said.

One little girl said she feels bad and sad for having to tell her friends they can’t come to her home because she doesn’t have a permanent one. “I feel bad about it. It breaks my heart,” she said.

The children remained hopeful, saying they want to go to college, become lawyers, president of the United States, anything to be able to support their families. “All of this was unrehearsed,” Ms. Nilan said after the clip ended.

There are about 1.5 to 3 million homeless youth in the country. Some of their families live doubled up with others, at campgrounds or bounce from hotel to hotel or shelter to shelter, she said. Ms. Nilan was shocked to learn many communities don’t even have shelters. Some of the country’s lawmakers don’t believe homelessness is as widespread as the statistics show, she said. “No wonder we’re in the mess that we’re in,” she said.

She’s working on a new project to talk to U.S. Congress people about the homelessness problems in the areas they represent. She urged the crowd to do the same after hearing from local housing representatives about homelessness in Mercer County. In 2008, 476 families were homeless and that number is 690 so far in 2009, said Natalie Higbee of the Prince of Peace Center, Farrell. She’s also involved with the Mercer County Housing Coalition.

Various organizations try to help as many families as they can, but there aren’t enough resources to go around, she said. “Do something to make the world a better place,” Ms. Nilan said.

Monica Pryts
6 October 2009

http://www.sharonherald.com/local/local_story_279222052.html

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UKRAINE

Adoption becomes the norm

The situation with adoption has improved dramatically in the past three years, reports Ukraine’s Ministry of Family, Youth, and Sports of Ukraine. Last year over 2,000 children were adopted by Ukrainians and 1,500 by foreign married couples, whereas in 2007 the numbers were reversed.

The ministry predicts that another 2,300 children will be adopted in Ukraine by the end of 2009. There are several reasons for this increase. First, a number of laws have been enacted to support adoptive families. Thus, starting on Jan. 1, 2009, they are entitled to the same childbirth payments as the families with their own children: over 12,000 hryvnias plus a 56-day maternity leave.

Second, throughout the year of 2008, which was proclaimed the National Adoption Year by the president of Ukraine, the ministry promoted alternative forms of care for orphan children, including foster families and homes. This has also served to change public attitude to adoption. From now on September 30 will be marked as Adoption Day to promote and honor adoptive families. Thanks to their efforts, nearly 60 orphans or children without parental care are adopted every day. What else should the state and society do to further improve this situation? Below is an interview with Deputy Minister of Family, Youth, and Sports Tetiana Kondratiuk.

Ms. Kondratiuk, what are your ministry’s expectations regarding newly introduced Adoption Day?

Answer: “There are different approaches to honoring and encouraging adoptive parents across the world. Similar holidays exist in Europe and the United States, although their tradition is more pragmatic. In Ukraine, Adoption Day was instituted last year on the president’s initiative to be marked on September 30. A number of events and public expert discussions will take place, because adoption is a public issue. In October, the President will take part in the fifth all-Ukrainian conference to discuss protection of children’s rights, and adoption will be on the agenda. Festive events will take place in the regions in order to draw public attention to the subject.

“Adoption Day must be a holiday for every family raising an orphan or a child denied parental care. Perhaps this event will launch a tradition when adoptive parents tell their child that they are not his or her biological parents. On the one hand, there is the secrecy of adoption, but on the other, we’re promoting children’s right to know the truth. The important thing is to know when the child is prepared to take in this information, i.e., at what age and in what psychological atmosphere. Adoption Day may be an excellent occasion.”

How large is the increase in the number of adopted children compared to last year? What are the causes behind it?

Answer: “There are 32,000 children waiting to be adopted. Over the past four years the adoption statistics have changed dramatically in favor of Ukrainian married couples. There are an increasing number of foster homes and families. Over 3,000 children live in 450 children’s homes. Another 4,000 children are with foster families. Our priority task is to have every child raised by a family, not in an institution with 20 children per room.

“Another positive aspect is that an increasing number of Ukrainians adopt HIV-positive children. There have been 20 such adoptions this year, in addition to 37 HIV-positive children in the foster family of Rev. Mykhailo, who was awarded the title ‘Hero of Ukraine’ by the president. Now he has more than 150 foster children. There are people in Ukraine who realize that such children are no different from others, except that certain limits were imposed on them at birth, so they can’t grow up normally. Nevertheless, they can be given a chance to have a future by giving them medications, looking after them, and raising them with love.

“A total of 25 HIV-infected children have been adopted by Ukrainian couples over the past year and a half. Therefore, the stereotypical notion that sick children go abroad is nothing more than a stereotype. Every family wants to raise a healthy child. In some cases foreign couples adopt children who need a surgery to help them out, but more often than not they refuse to adopt children with serious diseases.

“A number of adoption laws have been changed in last couple of years, and the adoption procedures have become more transparent and simpler, so that you don’t have to wait for several years—now it’s just three to four months. At present, there are ‘children’s services’ all over Ukraine, manned by qualified and experienced personnel. This system help the people who make the responsible decision to adopt children do so as quickly as possible. The amount of paperwork involved remains the same, but now it is free of charge.

“There are a greater number of adoptive families because the Ukrainian mentality is changing. Except for the ongoing crisis, the living standard in Ukraine has increased over the past couple of decades. Sociological studies show that quite a few families that have their own children decide to adopt children, saying they can afford this and that they have enough experience. Ukrainians are thus refuting the stereotype that adopting children is a very hard task. They are getting skeptical about allegations that children born to alcoholic families will eventually take to the bottle. All this has little to do with real life.”

Last year more children were adopted by Ukrainians than by foreign families. What is the situation now and what does your ministry plan to do to continue this trend?

Answer: “This trend has been there for the past three years, with Ukrainian families adopting 500 children more than foreign ones. It is also a positive fact that an increasing number of families are adopting children aged between six and twelve.

“Ukrainians used to conceal the adoption with women pretending to be pregnant and so on. Now an adoption is regarded as a normal thing. There is also progress in practicing various methods of raising such children. There are two forms of accommodation introduced by the state: foster homes in which parents can accommodate up to 10 children and two-parent foster families, which can raise up to four children.

“These forms allow the children to grow up in normal conditions. First, each such family receives two minimum living wages per child per month plus 35 percent of the sum total as a bonus for the foster parents. At present all such payments are made on time regardless of the crisis. Our objective is to get rid of all the post-Soviet boarding schools in 10 years’ time. This reform has been under way for five years, but there is still much to be done. In order to have more children in foster homes and families, we have introduced the money-follows-the-child system. In other words, no matter where the child is the money from the state will find this child.

“This makes enrolling children in boarding schools unprofitable, because here twice as much is spent on the children than in a foster family. In contrast to a foster family where all of this money is spent on the child, a boarding school channels part of this money into payroll, heating, equipment, and so on. Financing is not the only point, but it’s one of the elements of the institutionalization reform.

“Of course, the people who are still working [in boarding schools] will do anything to keep their jobs, so in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Science we’re considering the possibility of retraining them as social workers. Another effort is aimed at expanding the network of training courses for foster parents and families that keep foster homes. A training course for adoptive parents will be launched on January 1. All this is meant to help them realize the risks they will be taking, for example in case a child is sick. Coaches need their own training, because their qualification may influence trainees’ decisions to foster or adopt a child.”

Inna Filipenko
6 October 2009

http://day.kiev.ua/281170/

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So-called 'Girl World' can be a cruel place

Thirteen-year-old Emma Javid knows what it feels like to be bullied even though no one has ever laid a hand on her. The Nanaimo eighth-grader has even switched schools in order to get a fresh start.

It can only take a stare, shred of gossip or the "wrong" clothes to kickstart the rumour mill that many students, particularly girls, fall victim to in school. From there, it can be a relentless campaign of the cliques. Welcome to "Girl World," where the flipside of close female friendships is often cruelly ostracizing someone. It may also hold the solution, say experts trying to reduce emotional bullying and to give girls the skills to weather it when it does happen. And it almost certainly will keep happening.

"If you don't have looks, popularity or a boyfriend, you can't make it into one of those groups that are the centre of attention," said Javid. "I'm not one of the so-called popular girls. There's a lot of verbal bullying going on in school. It hurts so much inside and you can't really do anything about it."

Whereas boys tend to duke it out, girls tend to drag it out, say police and experts in bullying. This type of non-physical female fighting, dubbed "relational aggression" by experts, can leave lifelong scars.

In Nanaimo, school liaison officers say bullying is an issue they see "quite frequently," with kids not realizing the damage they are inflicting. "The girls will recruit friends. They'll do this covert harassment which goes on and on and on," said Nanaimo RCMP Const. Gary O'Brien, a former school liaison officer. "That can be the most devastating of all."

In high school and beyond, the proliferation of cellphones and popular online social networking sites have become the new playground for bullying, making it difficult for kids to escape, even at home. In extreme cases, websites like "slut lists" posts names and faces of girls online (it has happened in Nanaimo and Parksville schools) or the "honesty box" application that anonymously lets people know what they really think of you, can be devastating. Victims of such harassment have been known to drop out of school, withdraw emotionally, develop eating disorders or even harm themselves.

Experts say girls aged 10 to 14 tend to see the peak of relational aggression. It's a time when teens are particularly self-conscious, peer-focused and sensitive to rejection.

Women of all ages base their identity on relationships, says Kerri Isham of Parksville, and taking that away can cause problems ranging from low self-esteem to harmful behaviour in a quest to fit in. Isham has taught anti-bullying programs in schools for many years. She has seen first-hand the difference between traditional playground bullying and the type of emotional aggression girls typically use. "Most of the time they go underground and it's a covert operation," said Isham. "It's really hard for parents and teachers to see that."

The organizers of a program coming to Nanaimo later this month believe that enhancing mother-daughter connections can play a vital role to help girls develop supportive relationships with one another. The Strong Moms, Strong Girls program aims to help reduce relational aggression, or at least reduce the harm it inflicts, by reinforcing positive, healthy connections among women. The hands-on workshops are designed to boost self-esteem and body image, help women understand a girl's social world and equip girls with the skills to think critically about unreachable ideals portrayed in the media, such as extreme thinness.

Emotional bullying can be difficult to quantify but organizers say education and awareness can help. "I definitely come from a preventative perspective," said Angela Slade, who facilitates the program with Isham. "It's all about educating people and educating others." Slade, a child and youth care worker and former school counsellor, says the program can boost self-esteem while allowing girls to develop skills that can build stronger connections with their peers and their mothers.

Improving her self-esteem was critical for Javid. After attending an empowerment workshop last summer, she said her self-esteem and perspective has grown, although the catty culture that is high school still exists. Mom Lisa said the program helped give her daughter the independence and freedom to be who she wants to be. Javid still worries about finding a boyfriend and sometimes skips breakfast to get ready for school. Yet, she has friends and is learning to take things in her stride. "It doesn't matter what other people think of you," said Javid. "There's so many people who want to be included."

Danielle Bell
2 October 2009

http://www.canada.com/called+Girl+World+cruel+place/2059325/story.html

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UK

Homes plea to help vulnerable teenagers

Homes are being sought for vulnerable young people in Scarborough. North Yorkshire County Council is searching for people able to take in 16 or 17-year-olds who may be vulnerable as a consequence of being homeless.

Howard Smith, placement planning manager in the authority’s children’s services department, said: “In response to legislation to improve the life chances of young people leaving local authority care, North Yorkshire established a supported lodgings scheme for care leavers aged 16 or 17 years who struggled to manage living independently.

“The Government’s Care Matters agenda reasserts the importance of young people being able, on leaving care, to live in accommodation that is suitable to their needs and acknowledges that without this provision care leavers are less likely to do well in other aspects of their transition to adulthood.”

Recent changes in legislation have informed the council’s decision to extend the supported lodgings scheme to other vulnerable 16 or 17-year-olds who, for whatever reason, cannot live with their families. To help in the recruitment of supported lodgings, North Yorkshire has teamed up with Foster Care Associates, the largest provider of independent foster placements in the country. FCA hopes to find between eight and 10 supported lodgings households across the county.

Once households have joined the existing supported lodging scheme, day to day support will be provided through the council’s children and young people’s service. Each young person on the scheme will have a lead professional to ensure they have the right support and households will have access to evening and weekend support through the council’s youth services – there will also be access to “out of hours” help and support 365 days of the year. In addition to ongoing support and training, supported lodging households will receive a weekly package of remuneration in the region of £250 per week – this will be in addition to the financial support that the young person will receive.

Supported lodgings providers must have a spare room, share their home and be prepared to give a key to the young person. Ideally they will have some experience of teenagers and be able, with support, to enable their successful transition into adulthood. The household does not necessarily need to be a family – it can be a single individual but their lifestyle should be such that they are regularly at home at evenings and weekends. All will need to be subject to an enhanced criminal records check but having a criminal record will not necessarily prohibit becoming a supported lodgings provider – it will depend on the nature of the offence and how recently it occurred.

Martin Herron
1 October 2--9

http://www.scarborougheveningnews.co.uk/news/Homes-plea-to-help-vulnerable.5693169.jp

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