CFK Weekly— July 7, 2003
We encourage distribution of this information! If reprinting
in whole or part, please attribute it to Connect for Kids (www.connectforkids.org).
NEW ON CONNECTFORKIDS.ORG
**Peace of Art
**Breaking the Textbook Habit
THINGS TO DO TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
**Child Nutrition Audioconference
**Having Trouble with 21st Century CLC Grants?
**Help for State Advocates
**Lead Hazard Reduction Demonstration Grant Program
CONNECT FOR YOUTH
**Leave No Youth Behind: Opportunities for Congress to Reach Disconnected Youth
**Forum Focus: Quality Counts
**Building for a Healthy Future: Sustaining School-Based Enrollment in Health
Insurance Programs
FAMILIES AND THE ECONOMY
** Hard Times for Families and Communities
**$300 Billion Deficits, As Far As The Eye Can See
**Cut the Cities Some Slack
TARGETING TODDLERS
**IDEA for Pre-Schoolers
**Child Find Web Site: Finding and Assisting Kids with Special Needs
KIDS' HEALTH NEWS
**Steps to Reduce Dietary Dioxin Exposure
**Kraft Foods to Cut the Fat
**Environmental Risks and Children's Health
**All States Now Restrict Indoor Smoking
EARLY LEARNING
**Early Care and Education Partnerships: State Actions and Local Lessons
**Challenge to Cities to Develop Early Childhood Plans
**Full-Day Kindergarten Database Launching July 15
**Early Learning Opportunities Grant Applications
IMPROVING FOSTER CARE
**Keeping Kids with Familiar Faces, When Possible
**NYC Takes Giant Step Forward in Recruiting Foster Parents
**Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care: Request for Input
**Pew Papers on Children in Foster Care
**Comprehensive Assessments for Children Entering Foster Care: A National Perspective
HOUSING AND FAMILIES
**Discrimination in Metropolitan Housing Markets: Asians and Pacific Islanders
**Block Granting Section 8 Housing Vouchers
FOCUS ON THE STATES
SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE
PRIVACY POLICY
NEW ON CONNECTFORKIDS.ORG
**Peace of Art
At 70, artist Lloyd Kleine Harvey is hard at work helping young children tap into their artistic side. His work is based on the premise that there is a deep connection between creativity and the ability to solve problems without violence. Loriee Evans reports on Harvey's Peace Project.
http://www.connectforkids.org/content1549/content_show.htm?attrib_id=296&doc_id=181359
**Breaking the Textbook Habit
Expensive, stodgy, heavy?textbooks are hard to love and easy to forget. Gary Stager, editor-at-large for District Administrator magazine, wonders why so many school districts find these weighty tomes so hard to put down.
http://www.connectforkids.org/content1556/content_show.htm?attrib_id=343&doc_id=181360
THINGS TO DO TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE
**Child Nutrition Audioconference
The School Breakfast Program, WIC and the Child and Adult Care Food Program are up for reauthorization by Congress this year. Join this Center on Law and Social Policy audioconference for a discussion of what these programs mean for children's health.
http://www.claspstore.org/index.htm
**Having Trouble with 21st Century CLC Grants?
For an upcoming report on quality community-based after-school strategies, Partnerships for After-School Success is gathering information about 21st Century Community Learning Centers, including barriers in applying for grants. E-mail Pam Garza (pam@nassembly.org) for more information and the questionnaire.
**Help for State Advocates
Sometimes a good law is hard to find! The Legislative Bills Database from LINC (Low Income Networking and Communications), the Western Regional Welfare Activist Network, and the National Welfare Engine offers good model welfare and anti-poverty bills on care giving, education, and housing, as well as predatory lending and minimum wage.
http://www.wrwan.org/legbills
**Lead Hazard Reduction Demonstration Grant Program
Cities can apply for new federal grants of $2 million to $4 million for cities threatened by lead hazards. Deadline: July 31.
http://www.chf4kids.org
CONNECT FOR YOUTH
**Leave No Youth Behind: Opportunities for Congress to Reach Disconnected
Youth
Millions of young people in America reach adulthood without the skills, credentials
or commitment essential for a productive life. Over the next several decades,
the U.S. will face a serious worker gap, skills gap and wage gap -- too few
workers to meet demand, workers lacking the skills and education required and
a growing wage gap between high-skill workers and low-skill workers. Yet we
lack a coherent youth policy to prevent at-risk youth from becoming disconnected
and to help disconnected youth become productive workers with good prospects.
This Center on Law and Social Policy report reviews several key programs up
for reauthorization this year that can help, and encourages federal policymakers
to look across these legislative initiatives to develop an integrated set of
policies to address the needs of this population: the Adult Education and Family
Literacy Act, the Higher Education Act, the Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act, the Runaway and Homeless Youth Act, the Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families program, and the Workforce Investment Act.
The Center calls for a national commitment to increase the proportion of young
people who at age 25 have what it takes for adult success: a high school diploma
and postsecondary degree or credential, employment with career advancement possibilities,
and no engagement in adverse risk-taking behaviors.
http://www.clasp.org/DMS/Documents/1057083505.88/Disconnected_Youth.pdf
**Forum Focus: Quality Counts
There is growing recognition that in youth development programs, like many other
endeavors, quality counts -- but it also costs. The July issue of The Forum
For Youth Investment's journal, Forum Focus, summarizes the research and examines
the components of high-quality supportive settings, and how to measure quality
from the perspective of what young people need to heal, grow and contribute.
An interview with Robert Granger, new president of the William T. Grant Foundation,
is included.
http://www.forumforyouthinvestment.org/focus/focusv1i1jul03.pdf
**Building for a Healthy Future: Sustaining School-Based Enrollment
in Health Insurance Programs
Children need to be healthy to attend school regularly and succeed academically,
so schools are a natural base for outreach activities to help eligible students
enroll in state-sponsored health insurance programs. Given tight finances, this
Consumers Union report describes how four California initiatives--Healthy Start,
Proposition 10, School Lunch Programs, and health coordinators--can be used
as platforms to fund and support school-based health insurance outreach, enrollment,
and utilization activities.
http://www.healthykidsproject.org/pdf/CUHealthyFutures.pdf
FAMILIES AND THE ECONOMY
** Hard Times for Families and Communities
The national unemployment rate jumped to 6.4 percent in June -- the highest it's been since 1994. Since recession began in 2001, the private sector has lost 3.1 million jobs. And it is taking longer for displaced workers to find a job. In "Unemployment Rate Jumps, While Payrolls Decline," the Economic Policy Institute says it's beginning to look a lot like the crunch in the early 1980s: today, the average unemployed worker spends 19.8 weeks looking for work, the highest number since August 1983, when the average unemployment time hit 20 weeks and the unemployment rate was 9.5 percent.
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_econindicators_jobspict
**$300 Billion Deficits, As Far As The Eye Can See
The 2001, 2002, and 2003 federal tax cuts are full of changes that expire between 2004 and 2010 -- artificial expirations designed to keep down the apparent costs of the tax breaks. Unlike the Congressional Budget Office, which must make projections based only on current law, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities can make budget deficit projections based on what's likely to happen if Congress makes these tax cuts permanent. The result? Deficits projected to total $4.1 trillion over the next ten years, with higher interest payments. The $530 billion deficit projected for 2013 would equal 3.0 percent of Gross Domestic Product -- equivalent to $2,300 for each household in America, just when the retirement of baby boomers will grow the costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security faster than the tax base.
http://www.cbpp.org/7-2-03bud.htm
**Cut the Cities Some Slack
Tax increases or cuts in basic services are likely to run families and businesses out of town, so many communities are clamoring for more federal dollars, says Brookings Institution senior fellow Pietro Nivola in this op-ed. He urges the feds to consider more money and fewer un-funded mandates to educate kids with special needs, clean up local toxic waste sites, and pay for extra security measures every time there's an Orange Alert. Good work takes adequate funds.
http://www.brookings.edu/gs/commentary/oped/20030623nivola.htm
TARGETING TODDLERS
**IDEA for Pre-Schoolers
Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a federal grant program designed to provide, facilitate, and coordinate early intervention services for disabled infants, toddlers and their families. In 1999-2000, more than 205,000 infants, toddlers, and their families--or 1.8 percent of all U.S. infants and toddlers--accessed these services. "A Family Perspective on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act," from the Policy Institute for Family Impact Seminars, looks at how well Part C helps young families and coordinates services.
http://www.uwex.edu/ces/familyimpact/reports/fia3.pdf
**Child Find Web Site: Finding and Assisting Kids with Special Needs
Mounting research affirms that the greatest window of opportunity to influence child development is during the first years of life, so early identification of young children with disabilities or developmental delays is critical. The Centers for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities Education, Research and Service Web site has information for parents and caregivers--and is looking for ideas and resources that may help states or communities enhance the quality of their identification systems and public awareness activities.
http://www.childfindidea.org/
KIDS' HEALTH NEWS
**Steps to Reduce Dietary Dioxin Exposure
The Institute of Medicine says a federal interagency group should develop and implement an integrated risk-management strategy and action plan to reduce human exposure to dioxins in foods. This is especially important for girls and women, whose bodies can accumulate these toxic compounds well before childbearing, posing a risk to fetal development. Because the specific health risks of dioxins in foods are still unknown, the report recommends voluntary measures but does not recommend regulatory limits on the levels of these compounds in food or feed.
http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309089611?OpenDocument
**Kraft Foods to Cut the Fat
The nation's largest food manufacturer, Kraft Foods announced it is putting together an advisory committee to address the problem of rising obesity rates. The company plans to cut fat in its products, reduce portion sizes, quit marketing snacks via giveaways in schools and encourage healthier lifestyles especially among children and youth. While company officials say they are undertaking this initiative because "it is the right thing to do," advocates see the company positioning itself in response to the threat of lawsuits. (See the July 1, 2003 AP article, "Kraft Foods Joins in Fighting Obesity.")
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/apbiz_story.asp?category=1310&slug=Kraft%20Obesity
**Environmental Risks and Children's Health
This supplement to the July issue of Pediatrics looks at the number of environmental health risks where children live and play, and how parents and pediatricians can protect kids. Topics include evaluating the links between childhood cancers and environmental problems, herbal remedies that can pose a threat to children, pollutants' effects on growth and maturation, the impact of agricultural uses of antibiotics on children's health and lead poisoning in developing countries.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/current.shtml#SUPPLS1
**All States Now Restrict Indoor Smoking
Alabama recently became the last state to pass a law restricting indoor smoking, the Associated Press reported on June 23. Join Together has the full story.
http://www.jointogether.org/y/0,2521,564407,00.html?U=24562
EARLY LEARNING
**Early Care and Education Partnerships: State Actions and Local Lessons
Low-income parents continue to have difficulty finding accessible, high-quality early care for their children, says the Partnership Impact Research Project. This report explores different ways state and local leaders have been encouraging local partnerships to improve low-income families' access to early care and learning programs, but notes that funding for some of these actions is in jeopardy. Historically separate programs must make major paradigm shifts in theory and practice when they blend resources from different funding streams, so assessing the impact of such partnerships on access and quality of care, the subject of future studies, will be of critical importance.
http://www.ccf.edc.org/ecare_edupartner.pdf
**Challenge to Cities to Develop Early Childhood Plans
The National League of Cities President John DeStefano expressed dismay at America's lack of attention to the needs of its youngest children: "It always amazes me that we have heated debates about what happens to a child before birth, but then it's like they disappear until they're five years old." The forum helped large and small cities prepare strategic plans for their early childhood learning initiatives.
http://www.nlc.org/iyef
**Full-Day Kindergarten Database Launching July 15
Student enrollment in full-day kindergartens has increased from 25 percent in 1979 to 60 percent of age-eligible children in 2000. In the past three years, more than 20 states have introduced legislation to increase access and financing for full-day kindergarten. The Education Commission of the States is launching a 50-state interactive database of state policies, releasing a new survey of school districts, and offering in-depth coverage of state events.
http://www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/45/98/4598.htm
**Early Learning Opportunities Grant Applications
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families offers Early Learning Opportunities Act grants (ranging from $250,000 to $1 million), awarded on a competitive basis to local councils that increase, support and coordinate early learning opportunities for young children and their families. Deadline: August 6, 2003. (See the first listing in this registry.)
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/14mar20010800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2003/03-16099.htm
IMPROVING FOSTER CARE
**Keeping Kids with Familiar Faces, When Possible
State teams are already trying out different strategies to improve the potential of kinship care for kids who are removed from parents' care--including interviewing children in shelter placements to identify possible relative caregivers in Oklahoma, using a specific form to ask biological parents for information about possible kinship placements at the time of removal in Washington, and having Child Protective Services investigation workers ask parents, "Whom do you call when you need help with your children?" in Utah. (See the document, Kinship Care and the Breakthrough Series Collaborative.)
http://www.casey.org/cnc/recruitment/kinship_care_bsc.htm
**NYC Takes Giant Step Forward in Recruiting Foster Parents
Local child welfare agencies have a hard time finding enough foster families for all the kids who need care, but a new initiative in New York City demonstrates that taking a business-like approach to marketing can make a big difference. Calls from prospective foster parents jumped dramatically after a marketing campaign was launched in New York City, designed by True Insight Consulting based on extensive market research on how to reach potential foster care-takers in the community.
http://www.trueinsightmarketing.com/whatsnew.htm
**Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care: Request for Input
The Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care has approximately a year to develop effective, practical policy recommendations in the areas of federal financing and court oversight. The Commission is interested in considering a broad array of options and is accepting input from interested parties.
http://pewfostercare.org/newsletter/index.php?NewsletterID=4
**Pew Papers on Children in Foster Care
In preparation for its first meeting in late May, the Pew Commission on Children in Foster Care prepared three background papers: "The Federal Legal Framework for Child Welfare," "Child Welfare and the Courts," and "The Child Welfare Financing Structure." The reports are now available online.
http://pewfostercare.org/docs/index.php?DocID=22
**Comprehensive Assessments for Children Entering Foster Care: A National Perspective
Children in foster care are a particularly vulnerable population, often with serious and complex physical and mental health issues. This study finds that despite national assessment guidelines, many counties do not have comprehensive policies or routine practices that address all children entering out-of-home care, so primary care providers should be educated about their specific problems because they may be the only practitioners evaluating the children.
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/112/1/134
HOUSING AND FAMILIES
**Discrimination in Metropolitan Housing Markets: Asians and Pacific Islanders
One out of every five Asians and Pacific Islanders faces discrimination in home and rental markets, according to the Urban Institute. The findings are based on a sample of 11 metropolitan areas that account for more than three-quarters of all Asians and Pacific Islanders living in metropolitan areas nationwide.
http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=1000502
**Block Granting Section 8 Housing Vouchers
The Department of Housing and Urban Development says block granting the Section 8 Housing Program (the mainstay of the federal housing funding for low-income households) will cut red tape and costs. Barbara Sard of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says it will cut more than that -- namely, funding and vouchers for thousands of recipients. Learn more from this feature on the Lehrer News Hour. (See "Fears Over Inadequate Funding," midway down the page.)
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/fedagencies/july-dec03/rentsubsids_07-02.html
FOCUS ON THE STATES
**State-by-State News
California
Governor Gray Davis has launched an "express lane eligibility" program to allow
parents of children in the free school lunch program to share information that
can expedite their child's enrollment in the state's insurance program without
having to complete an extensive application.
http://www.ecs.org/econn070103_01
Connecticut
A new report by the Child Health and Development Institute of Connecticut brings
together all that is known about Connecticut's child care workforce and identifies
areas where further research is needed. "A Research Perspective on the Child
Care Workforce in Connecticut" is the first attempt in the state to summarize
all state and relevant national data on workforce issues such as provider qualifications,
compensation and turnover.
http://www.chdi.org/files/report_workforce.pdf
Louisiana
Louisiana joins Florida and Massachusetts in authorizing a new specialty license
plate, "Invest in Children," to provide funding to support early childhood development
programs, under the Women's Leadership Initiative of the United Way of Greater
New Orleans, reports the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
(Scroll down to, "Specialty License Plate Initiative.")
http://www.unitedwaynola.org/Newsletter/WLI%20Template%20Newsletter%20May.htm
Massachusetts
Who knew shopping could make a difference? Shop at iGive.com using the link
below, and Massachusetts Citizens for Children gets a donation of up to 26 percent
for every purchase you make--at no cost to you!
http://www.iGive.com/MassKids
Maryland
Governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has vetoed a bill (HB 253) that would have allowed
undocumented students in the state to qualify for lower, in-state tuition rates
at public colleges and universities.
http://www.ecs.org/e-Connection-ws
Virginia
Governor Mark Warner vetoes a bill that would have barred undocumented students
in the state to qualify for lower, in-state tuition rates at public colleges
and universities.
http://www.governor.virginia.gov
SUBSCRIBE/UNSUBSCRIBE
Need to subscribe? Or go to http://www.connectforkids.orgYou can always find the current Weekly, and archived
editions, at
http://www.connectforkids.org//newsletter-url1571/newsletter-url.htm
PRIVACY POLICY
In an effort to better serve the subscribers of our electronic newsletters,
the Connect for Kids Weekly and Connections, periodically we may employ tracking
software that lets us know how subscribers move from the e-mail newsletter to
our Web site. The information we gather is strictly intended for internal evaluation
and will not be shared with any individual or organization.
http://www.connectforkids.org/information1537/information_show.htm?doc_id=9207
Keep up the good work, everyone!
Jan Richter, advocacy director, and the Connect for Kids team
Jan@connectforkids.org
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