Parents are a child’s first teacher and each parent comes from a variety of backgrounds with different skills, experiences, and cultural norms. Unfortunately, there is no “one size fits all” manual to tell parents how to raise their children. As a mother of two, if such a manual existed I would buy it in a heartbeat. Parenting is the most challenging, yet rewarding experience a person can have.
In St. Joseph County, families are struggling. The recession put many out of work or facing wage cuts. Unemployment and tight family budgets put families under enormous stress. This situation affects the children and puts them at a higher risk for abuse and/or neglect.
The need for early intervention services for young children in St. Joseph County is high. Almost one in four children is living in poverty in the county. Since 2000, the Free and Reduced Priced Lunch rose 26.4 percent with now almost 60 percent of the county’s children eligible for the program. From 2000 to 2010, mortgage foreclosures increased 290 percent. These factors create stress on the family and the children.
According to the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child, the latest brain research shows that toxic stress is harmful to children’s development. Children who grow up in families living in poverty and those facing economic hardship often experience toxic stress and higher levels of cortisol. This reaction to prolonged stressors can affect the architecture of the brain, making it more difficult for children to learn. In addition, these children react more extremely to cases of mild stress. This affects the long term development of the child and can affect their mental and physical well-being as an adult.
The early formative years in a child’s development are crucial. Home visiting programs such as Parents as Teachers, Healthy Families America, and Nurse Family Partnership, have proven outcomes to reduce child abuse and neglect and increase school readiness for children. These programs benefit the community and have a rate of return of up to $5.70 per dollar spent due to reduced costs in the criminal justice system, less dependence welfare, and increased employment.
Home visiting programs help develop the future workforce. These programs are a smart investment and can help create a strong healthy community.
Amy Brauer is the Coordinator of the St. Joseph County Great Start Collaborative, an initiative of the St. Joseph County Human Services Commission. For more information on how you can get involved in supporting young children in our community, please visit www.sjcgsc.org or call 269-467-5309.
wonderful … but sadly, so true article … and then also factor in the increase of households where the children are being raised by grandparents or other relative/kinship families which then adds to the emotional separation/anxiety/abuse of children …
Home visiting programs must become a budget priority in our county … our state… and our nation … before we are left wondering “where have all the children gone?”
I tend to agree with much of the sentiment of the post above. Our first foster child (who we adopted) received alot of services from one of the aforementioned agencies listed in the article above, which was crucial for our adopted son’s development and they provided a world of education for us on how to help in his recovery from the neglect from the biological family. This was a precedent setting legal case in the county for the first infant ever removed from a family for mental neglect. I don’t know if we will wonder where all the children have gone without these agencies….what concerns me is the fact that we would be spending $5.70 on the back end for every $1 we don’t spend upfront to head problems off early on. Folks that haven’t experienced these groups and the services they provide and understand their impact will have a hard time grasping that concept. We have had foster kids that have had early intervention and help, one a bit later than that, and one alot later than that. The difference there is we have one that is well adjusted and thriving (from early intervention), one that will require extensive therapies, meds for emotional issues and trauma and special services (mid term intervention) and one (with such services provided too late) that was homicidal, suicidal to the point where we had to lock up all sharp objects, alarms on doors and windows so other family members aren’t hurt in their sleep, and some pretty intense medications, from a child with severe reactive attachment disorder and no remorse and serious issues (and was pretty much institutionalized). So take it from someone who has worked with some of these groups and the results of when such services take place at various intervals of child development–these groups and when they can provide services matter alot in the outcome of a child’s life.