Milwaukee-based researchers study prenatal exposure to toxins, By Kelly Hogan, August 15, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Scientists are learning that health is the function of genes and environment. The work of Milwaukee-based researchers suggests that this principle also applies to the health of a growing fetus and a premature infant. Michael Laiosa, assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Public Health, and neonatologist Venkatesh Sampath, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Medical College of Wisconsin, want to understand how genetics and the environment affect the health of humans during the most vulnerable stages of development. In Milwaukee, there were 807 infant and fetal deaths between 2005 and 2008, according to the city’s Fetal Infant Mortality Review. A disproportionate number were African-American. Of the 499 who were not stillborn, nearly 54% died from complications of being born too soon…”

More of county’s youth in poverty, courts, By Mealand Ragland-Hudgins, August 9, 2011, Daily News Journal: “Rutherford County children fared better than their peers across the state on the 2010 Kids Count report, although increases were seen in the areas of local children living in poverty or being referred to juvenile court. Released today, the report is an analysis of issues that can affect children’s well-being in all 95 of Tennessee’s counties. Included in the report is data on high school dropouts, children on public assistance, medical care, safety and risky behaviors. Most data in the report is based on numbers compiled in 2008 or 2009, depending on what information was available. Individual rankings by county were not provided, and data was only broken down by city for Memphis and Nashville-Davidson County…”

Poverty rates leap for Ohio children, By Rita Price, August 6, 2011, Columbus Dispatch: “The number of Ohio counties with at least a fourth of their children living in poverty doubled in just one year, with Franklin County tumbling into the group. According to a report from the Children’s Defense Fund-Ohio, 31 Ohio counties - more than a third of the state total - had child-poverty rates of 25 percent or higher in 2009. That’s a jump from 15 counties in 2008, according to U.S. census estimates compiled by the child-advocacy organization…”

• Survey: 19 percent more NH children got food stamps between 2008 and 2009, By Michael Brindley, August 5, 2011, Nashua Telegraph: “The number of New Hampshire children whose families receive food stamps increased by 19 percent from 2008 to 2009, according to a study released today gauging the health of the state’s children. The annual New Hampshire Kids Count Data Survey, released by the Children’s Alliance of New Hampshire, uses 33 data points to measure the well-being of children in the state. Among the findings in this year’s report is that an average of 16.8 percent of children aged 0 to 17, or one out of every six minors, participated in the food stamp program in 2008 and 2009. During that period, overall participation increased by 19 percent, according to the study. This was attributed to factors such as rising unemployment during the recession and the rising cost of food…”
• Report tracks childhood hunger in NH, By Cara Hogan, August 5, 2011, Eagle Tribune: “A group of six children come into the Sonshine Soup Kitchen in Derry a few times a week to eat a meal. ‘I don’t know where the parents are, if they’re working or what,’ Christine Fudala, director of Sonshine Soup Kitchen said. ‘The kids are about middle-school age and they’re always thankful and respectful. School’s out so the food might not be there for them at home.’ They are some of the many children whose families are struggling to feed them and house them. The number of children in New Hampshire on food stamps increased by 19 percent from 2008 to 2009 and homeless students increased 21 percent in the same time period, according to the New Hampshire Kids Count Data Book released this week. The study tracks the well-being of New Hampshire’s children, according to Ellen Fineberg, executive director of the Children’s Alliance of New Hampshire…”

A rising hunger among children, By Kay Lazar, July 28, 2011, Boston Globe: “Doctors at a major Boston hospital report they are seeing more hungry and dangerously thin young children in the emergency room than at any time in more than a decade of surveying families. Many families are unable to afford enough healthy food to feed their children, say the Boston Medical Center doctors. The resulting chronic hunger threatens to leave scores of infants and toddlers with lasting learning and developmental problems…”

Child welfare overhaul still bumpy, By Martha Stoddard, July 24, 2011, Omaha World-Herald: “Before turning over major responsibility for Nebraska’s child welfare system to private contractors, state officials said the change would help abused and neglected children. Fewer children would be torn from their homes. Fewer would become wards of the state. Children would not be bounced from foster home to foster home. Families would be reunified or children adopted sooner. What’s more, those benefits could be gained with existing state dollars. Yet 20 months into the reform, the costs to the state have escalated, instability within the system has grown and benefits have been mixed, at best…”

Investigation: Health care system struggles to follow foster kids, By David Freed, July 23, 2011, North County Times: “San Marcos resident Patty Boles has taken in more than 100 children during three decades as a foster mom. She specializes in caring for the most medically fragile kids the system has to offer, and has adopted 10 of them. If there’s one thing Boles has learned over all those years, it’s that the system often does a poor job of meeting foster children’s health needs, thanks in no small measure to the often haphazard, increasingly archaic way their medical records are kept. “The way it works right now,” said Boles, president of the North County Foster Parents Association, “is a huge problem.” By law, each time a foster youth in California is relocated, a comprehensive paper file of his or her medical records —- a “health passport” —- is to be promptly forwarded to the new caregiver. But this doesn’t always happen, according to Boles and other foster care experts —- sometimes with potentially serious consequences…”

Florida spurns $50 million for child-abuse prevention, By Carol Marbin Miller, July 20, 2011, Miami Herald: “Florida lawmakers have rejected more than $50 million in federal child-abuse prevention money. The grants were tied to the Obama administration’s healthcare reform package, which many lawmakers oppose on philosophical grounds. The money, offered through the federal Affordable Health Care Act passed last year, would have paid, among other things, for a visiting nurse program run by Healthy Families Florida, one of the most successful child-abuse prevention efforts in the nation. Healthy Families’ budget was cut in last year’s spending plan by close to $10 million. And because the federal Race to the Top educational-reform effort is tied to the child-abuse prevention program that Healthy Families administers, the state may also lose a four-year block grant worth an additional $100 million in federal dollars, records show…”

NY charter school throws foster kids a safety net, By Larry Neumeister (AP), July 10, 2011, Seattle Times: “A Harvard-trained administrator thought she had heard it all as a gatekeeper in a city office responsible for supporting charter schools when Bill Baccaglini walked enthusiastically through the door with one more idea. ‘I thought, ‘Here we go, another big idea,” recalled Jessica Nauiokas. But she found herself liking his plans so much that she offered to be the Bronx school’s principal. ‘I walked out of the meeting and said, ‘Wow. That actually is a compelling idea.” Thus explains how Nauiokas became principal at the Haven Academy Charter School, where a third of students are in foster care. Another third are in families receiving preventive services to diminish the need for foster care. The rest are from the Mott Haven community, which is in a Congressional district where a soaring poverty rate keeps a third of residents on public assistance…”

County’s child poverty highest in decade, report says, By Marga K. Cooley, July 14, 2011, Santa Maria Times: “The number of children in Santa Barbara County who qualify for free and reduced-cost lunches - 54 percent - and those who live below the federal poverty level, were the highest of the decade in 2010, according to a recent report on children’s welfare. ‘The data shows what we know, that there’s great economic concern for families in our county, and that’s increasing,’ said Joy Thomas, outreach and education specialist for KIDS Network, which produced the 2010 Children’s Scorecard along with the UCSB Gevirtz Graduate School of Education and a variety of public agencies and community-based organizations. Thomas said many of the numbers are due to the general state of the economy, but some are prolonged, significant issues, such as the achievement gap in student test scores…”

Census finds share of children in US drops to 24 percent, a record low, with many in poverty, Associated Press, July 12, 2011, Washington Post: “Children now make up less of America’s population than ever before, even with a boost from immigrant families. And when this generation grows up, it will become a shrinking work force that will have to support the nation’s expanding elderly population - even as the government strains to cut spending for health care, pensions and much else. The latest 2010 census data show that children of immigrants make up one in four people under 18, and are now the fastest-growing segment of the nation’s youth, an indication that both legal and illegal immigrants as well as minority births are lifting the nation’s population. Currently, the share of children in the U.S. is 24 percent, falling below the previous low of 26 percent of 1990. The share is projected to slip further, to 23 percent by 2050, even as the percentage of people 65 and older is expected to jump from 13 percent to 19 percent due to the aging of baby boomers and beyond…”

• Michigan’s sharp rise in births to unwed moms means ‘a lot more children growing up in poverty’, By Sue Thoms, July 7, 2011, Grand Rapids Press: “A sharp increase in the number of unmarried women having babies means trouble ahead for mothers and children in Michigan, according to the Michigan League for Human Services. ‘We’re going to see a lot more children growing up in poverty,’ said Jane Zehnder-Merrill, director of a report released Wednesday on trends in maternal and infant health from 2000 to 2009. The study found 40 percent of births in Michigan in 2009 were to unmarried woman — a 20 percent rise since 2000. Two of every three births to women in their early 20s were to unwed mothers…”
• Study: Fewer teens, more singles giving birth in Michigan, By Chris Christoff, July 7, 2011, Detroit Free Press: “The percentage of babies born in Michigan to unmarried mothers rose significantly during the last decade, but fewer teens are giving birth, a new study shows. About half of all births in 2000-09 were to low-income mothers eligible for Medicaid health insurance, according to the Kids Count in Michigan report by the Michigan League for Human Services. The trend is troubling because babies born to unmarried women are more likely to live in poverty and have health and learning problems, said Kids Count in Michigan Director Jane Zehnder-Merrell…”

Tooth decay is prevalent among poor children, By Amanda Mascarelli, July 1, 2011, Los Angeles Times: “One-fourth of the nation’s children have 80% of the nation’s tooth decay, and most of them are underprivileged. The simplicity of those numbers, from the U.S. Government Accountability Office, underscores the reality of dental care in this country but gives little hint at its ultimate effects. Oral infection is the No. 1 chronic disease in children - five times more prevalent than asthma - and experts estimate that more than 50% of children will have some tooth decay by age 5…”

Child welfare systems working to get more dads into the equation of safe homes, By Karen Auge, June 20, 2011, Denver Post: “Richard Jama had been searching for his daughter for weeks when he discovered she was living with strangers, foster parents chosen for her by child welfare workers. When the social workers took the little girl, who had been abused by her mother’s boyfriend, they asked the child’s mother where the father was. ‘She said I had gone back to Africa,’ the Liberian immigrant said. In fact, Jama hadn’t gone anywhere - and he was still paying child support. Jama, who spent the past two years fighting to get his daughter back for good, doesn’t understand why social workers took the word of his child’s mother or why they didn’t check child-support records to find him. That is changing, social workers say…”

• Study shows Medicaid kids are denied medical care, By Lindsey Tanner (AP), June 16, 2011, USA Today: “Children on public insurance are being denied treatment by doctors at much higher rates than those with private coverage, according to an undercover study that had researchers pose as parents of sick kids seeking an appointment with a specialist. Snubbed even by specialists whose offices supposedly accept public insurance patients, these kids also had to wait much longer to see a doctor. Low Medicaid reimbursements are the likely reason, the study authors said. The study was done in Cook County, Ill., the nation’s second-most populous county which includes Chicago, but the researchers and others say the results likely reflect practices around the country…”
• Penn study finds doctors delaying or rejecting specialty care for publicly insured children, By Marie McCullough, June 16, 2011, Philadelphia Inquirer: “A University of Pennsylvania study in which callers posed as mothers seeking pediatric specialty care found that two-thirds of publicly insured children were refused a doctor’s appointment, compared with only 11 percent of privately insured children. Even the low-income children who were not rejected had to wait an average of 42 days for appointments for urgent conditions such as diabetes, seizures, asthma, or a bone fracture - 22 days longer on average than children with private insurance…”

• Study: Preschool boosts low-income students, By Noreen S. Ahmed-Ullah, June 9, 2011, Chicago Tribune: “A new study revealing the lasting impact of a solid preschool education - especially in disadvantaged communities - was released Thursday, just as Illinois’ governor considers a state budget plan that slashes funding to early childhood programs. While many findings over the years have touted the benefits of starting kids early on the path to education, a study conducted inside Chicago Public Schools and published online by the journal Science shows attending preschool can yield payoffs into adulthood. The report shows that children who attended an established preschool program in Chicago completed high school at higher rates, stayed out of jail, were less likely to abuse drugs or alcohol, and improved their living standards as adults. For 25 years, researchers from the University of Minnesota tracked 1,400 Chicago Public Schools students who attended early childhood programs. They compared those who started preschool at age 3 in Child-Parent Centers, located in or near elementary schools serving low-income students, with those who didn’t attend preschool at all or went to the typical Head Start program…”
• Preschool’s many benefits last into adulthood, according to study of low-income children, By Lindsey Tanner (AP), June 9, 2011, Washington Post: “Preschool has surprisingly enduring benefits lasting well into adulthood, according to one of the biggest, longest follow-up studies of its kind. Better jobs, less drug abuse and fewer arrests are among advantages found in the study that tracked more than 1,000 low-income, mostly black Chicago kids for up to 25 years. Michael Washington was one of them. Now a 31-year-old heating and air conditioning contractor, Washington attended a year of preschool at Chicago’s intensive Child-Parent Center Education Program when he was 4. The ongoing publicly funded program focuses on language development, scholastic skills and building self-confidence. It involves one or two years of half-day preschool, and up to four additional years of educational and family services in grade school. Preschool teachers have college degrees and are certified in early childhood education, and parents are encouraged to be involved in the classes…”

• Cumberland County ranks last in children’s health issues, By Caitlin Dineen, May 23, 2011, Press of Atlantic City: “Cumberland County ranks 21st of New Jersey’s 21 counties in terms of overall child well-being, and Atlantic and Cape May counties also rank poorly, according to the New Jersey Kids Count annual rankings released Monday. The survey, which is published by Advocates for Children of New Jersey, compares counties on 15 measures including child poverty, health, safety and education. Cumberland - which ranked 20th last year - slipped to last place due to a combination of increasing childhood poverty, students having the lowest passing rates for state tests and an increased infant mortality rate…”
• Child data reveals county in last place, By Matt Zager, May 24, 2011, Vineland Daily Journal: “Cumberland County has slipped to last in the state in an annual ranking of child well-being, according to the latest Kids Count report released Monday. ‘That we’re still last is disturbing,’ said George Sartorio, Cumberland County health officer. ‘We all need to do a better job to get better outcomes.’ The data were collected as part of an ongoing effort known as Kids Count conducted by Advocates for Children of New Jersey. It compares the state’s 21 counties on 15 categories, including child poverty, health safety and education…”

• Labour’s final year in power saw child poverty at lowest level since 1980s, By Larry Elliott and Patrick Wintour, May 12, 2011, The Guardian: “Child poverty in Britain fell to its lowest level since the mid-1980s during Labour’s last year in power, according to the latest official figures. Data from the Office for National Statistics released on Thursday said that 20% of children were living in a household below the poverty line in 2009-10, down from 22% the previous year. Although the figures show Labour missed its target of halving child poverty by 2010, campaigners welcomed the improvement during the longest and deepest recession since the second world war. They warned that the downward trend in the number of children in families with an income less than 60% of the national median before housing costs were taken into account was likely to be reversed as a result of spending cuts. Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, said the return on Labour’s anti-poverty spending had been poor and that the figures showed no narrowing of the gap between rich and poor households…”
• Child poverty figures fell in UK during 2009/2010, May 12, 2011, BBC News: “In 2009-10, 20% of children (2.6m) lived in households classed as below the poverty line, a two per cent decrease on the previous year. Children’s charities offered a cautious welcome to the statistics but warned the future looked bleaker. Ministers say the figures signal a poor return on Labour’s huge investment. Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘These figures lay bare the growth of income inequality in the UK which is now the highest it has ever been…’”
• Cuts will force child poverty levels to increase again, says thinktank, By Larry Elliott, May 13, 2011, The Guardian: “Britain’s leading financial thinktank warned on Friday that 300,000 children would be pushed below the poverty line in the next three years as the government’s spending cuts reversed the improvement during Labour’s last years in power. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said that after falling to its lowest level in 25 years, child poverty was likely to rise sharply owing to George Osborne’s decision to cut the generosity of state benefits and tax credits. In its analysis of the latest official figures, the IFS said despite 200,000 fewer children living below the poverty line in the year to the 2010 general election, Labour had missed its ambitious target for halving the total by a wide margin and after 13 years went into opposition with income inequality at its widest since modern records began in 1961…”

Milwaukee infant mortality rate still high, despite years of effort, millions spent, By Crocker Stephenson and Ben Poston, May 7, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “As other communities around the country have found ways to reduce infant mortality, Milwaukee’s rate has remained all but stagnant for nearly two decades, the result of a vacuum of leadership and a scattershot approach to tackling the problem. In Central Harlem, babies once died at a rate twice that of Milwaukee. But through a unified effort, the community has slashed its infant mortality rate by 78% since 1990. The rate there is now about 6 deaths per 1,000 births, lower than the state of Wisconsin as a whole. In Milwaukee - where tens of millions of tax dollars have been spent in the past decade - 11 out of every 1,000 infants die before their first birthday. The city continues to have one of the worst infant mortality rates in the nation, especially for African-Americans, whose babies die at a rate about 2.5 times that of whites. Year after year, the city continues its rudderless and fragmented approach, with over 100 health initiatives that, lacking collective impact, fail to generate communitywide results…”

Conn. to help inmates pare child-support bills, By Pat Eaton-Robb (AP), May 1, 2011, Denver Post: “Julaquis Minnifield was sitting in his prison cell last summer when he received a notice from the state of Connecticut that he owed more than $13,000 in back child support for his 8-year-old son. Minnifield went to prison knowing he must pay $55 a week in child support under an order obtained by his former girlfriend but said he had no idea the debt was accruing while he was behind bars. He expects to owe more than $15,000 by the time he is released next year. ‘What chance do I have to pay if I’m incarcerated? The longer I sit here, the higher the debt goes,’ Minnifield, a 31-year-old Waterbury man, said in an interview at the Carol Robinson Correctional institution in Enfield, where he is serving a 2-year sentence for drug possession. It’s a challenge faced by incarcerated parents across the country, the vast majority of them fathers. Just because they are in prison does not mean they won’t have to pay child support or repay the state for welfare paid to their families in lieu of child support. Experts say the debt can make overwhelmed parents less likely to pay when they are released, and potentially damage relationships with their children…”

Homeless, but finding sanctuary at school, By Micael Winerip, May 1, 2011, New York Times: “The bus ride from the homeless shelter to Fern Creek Elementary School was, as usual, raucous. A hundred times, Doretha Brown, the bus driver, had to yell for everyone to sit down. ‘This noise is what holds us up every morning and evening!’ Ms. Brown shouted, although the Collins girls - Brianna, 8; Tamara, 7; and Sydney, 6 - could barely hear her above the din. A first grader and a second grader got into a fight on the 15-minute ride, and someone else threw up. Brianna, Tamara and Sydney paid no mind. As their father, James Collins, says, ‘To get by at a shelter, you have to focus yourself.’ This is the sisters’ second stay at a shelter, so they are becoming accustomed to being homeless. Roxanne Schreffler, a kindergarten teacher, was struck by Sydney’s arrival at Fern Creek in February. ‘She walked into kindergarten in the middle of the day and sat right down,’ Ms. Schreffler said. ‘She’d immediately adapted to her new situation. There was no time integrating her into the class; she was ready to go…’”

• 1 in 4 children in US raised by a single parent, By Christine Armario (AP), April 27, 2011, Miami Herald: “One in four children in the United States is being raised by a single parent - a percentage that has been on the rise and is higher than other developed countries, according to a report released Wednesday. Of the 27 industrialized countries studied by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, the U.S. had 25.8 percent of children being raised by a single parent, compared with an average of 14.9 percent across the other countries. Ireland was second (24.3 percent), followed by New Zealand (23.7 percent). Greece, Spain, Italy and Luxemborg had among the lowest percentages of children in single-parent homes. Experts point to a variety of factors to explain the high U.S. figure, including a cultural shift toward greater acceptance of single-parent child rearing. The U.S. also lacks policies to help support families, including childcare at work and national paid maternity leave, which are commonplace in other countries…”
• UK spends more on families than most OECD countries, By Karen McVeigh, April 27, 2011, The Guardian: “Britain is one of the biggest investors in families across all countries of the Organisation of Co-operation and Economic Development (OECD), according to a report looking at how governments support families. It spent 3.6% of its GDP on family benefits, compared to an OECD average of 2.2% over all benefits, in 2007. Only Denmark and France spent more, at 3.7% each. The OECD report into family life has found the UK spends more on each child than most other OECD countries, more than £138,000 from birth up to the age of 18, compared to an OECD average of £95,000. Most of it, 2.1% of GDP, spent on families was spent on cash benefits, such as child benefit and working tax credit. However, in terms of better outcomes for families, such as the ability to lift children out of poverty, gender equality and family employment, Britain lags behind countries which spend less…”
• More Irish children live in poverty than OECD average, By Joanne Hunt, April 29, 2011, Irish Times: “The Poorest in society are no longer pensioners but families with children, an OECD study has found. Doing Better for Families, the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development’s report on family wellbeing, says families with children are more likely to be poor than in previous decades, when the poorest were more likely to be pensioners. The study finds that while poverty in households with children is rising in nearly all OECD countries, 16.3 per cent of Irish children now live in poverty, well above the OECD average of 12.7 per cent…”
• One child in four in single-parent home, By Bronwyn Torrie, April 30, 2011, Dominion Post: “New Zealand has the third-highest rate of children living in single-parent homes, an OECD study says. This means nearly one in four Kiwi children are growing up in single-parent homes as more marriages break up and single women choose to enter motherhood on their own. Of 27 industrialised countries, New Zealand ranked third in the Doing Better for Families study, with 23.7 per cent of children living in a one-parent household, compared with the 14.9 per cent average across all countries. The United States ranked first with 25.9 per cent and Ireland was second with 24.3 per cent…”

• Is stress to blame for preterm births?, By Mark Johnson and Tia Ghose, April 16, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “A tight, persistent pain in the lower abdomen chased Jasmine Zapata from class that morning, forcing her upstairs to rest on a couch at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health in Madison. It was Sept. 20, and Zapata was in her 25th week of pregnancy, just past the midpoint. She neither smoked nor drank. She knew the importance of proper prenatal care - of course she did - and had followed the doctor’s orders to the letter. Zapata, after all, was in her second year of medical school. The 23-year-old Milwaukee native had carried her first pregnancy to term and had a beautiful son to show for it: MJ, now 18 months old. At her last doctor visit the week before, all had been fine. But on this morning when Zapata rose from the couch and went into the bathroom, she saw she was bleeding. By the time the ambulance got to the hospital, she was completely dilated and in fear for her baby daughter. ‘When they were doing an ultrasound, I was mentally preparing myself,’ Zapata said. ‘What if they tell me she’s dead?’ Educated, married, with no chronic illnesses or family history of prematurity, Zapata was not, in most respects, a high risk for premature delivery, the No. 1 cause of infant mortality in Milwaukee. Only one factor suggested risk: Zapata is African-American…”
• Understanding the risks, Editorial, April 16, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “African-American babies in Milwaukee are dying before their first birthday at more than twice the rate of white infants. This tragic trend line has widened despite years of effort. Poverty, unhealthy environments, lack of prenatal care, smoking or drinking alcohol and chronic diseases such as diabetes all play a role. But researchers now believe that something else is behind these cruel numbers: the accumulated stress of a life lived as a racial minority. This insight argues for approaches that help black women understand the multiple risks they face and that give them tools to cope with these risks. Milwaukee’s black infant mortality rate was 15.7 deaths per 1,000 live births between 2005 and 2008, one of the worst rates in the country and double the rate for white babies…”

Colorado’s poorest counties face the highest rate of teen pregnancy, By Karen Auge, April 10, 2011, Denver Post: “At 2 in the afternoon on a recent Tuesday, Lexie Parker lay on the couch in her tidy, three-room Walsenburg apartment, cuddling her 16-month-old daughter, Tazia. One skinny stream of sunlight squeezed into a room otherwise darkened by a blanket tacked over the window. Tazia giggled at the furry monster and his little green counterpart as the sounds of ‘Monsters, Inc.’ filled the room. ‘This is it; this is our life,’ Parker said…”

Teen pregnancy rate drops to a record low, CDC reports, By Linda Shrieves, April 5, 2011, Orlando Sentinel: “The teen pregnancy rate in the United States fell in 2009 to a record low - part of a 37 percent decline over the past 20 years. And though that sounds like cause for celebration, here’s the more depressing side of those statistics: Teen pregnancy rates here are as much as nine times higher than in other developed countries, according to the latest CDC Vital Signs report. The report, which covers teen pregnancy rates from 1991 to 2009, found that more than 400,000 teen girls give birth each year in the U.S…”

• Report: Budget cuts to early childhood intervention programs are taking toll on R.I.’s poor children, By Jennifer D. Jordan, April 4, 2011, Providence Journal: “Rhode Island’s lingering recession has taken its toll on thousands of the state’s most vulnerable citizens - children in low-income families. Deep cuts in recent years to child-care subsidies, welfare cash-assistance for children and state financing for early childhood education programs have tattered their safety net. The 2011 Rhode Island Kids Count Factbook, released Monday, finds there are inadequate government supports for many of the state’s 38,600 poor children, particularly during their early years. Just 5 percent of income-eligible children have access to Early Head Start, a federal parenting and early childhood education program to help teen mothers and their infants and toddlers. And only 40 percent of low-income children participate in the federal pre-kindergarten program, Head Start, due to cuts in state subsidies that slashed the number of slots…”
• Progress seen for RI kids, but advocates say much more needs to be done, By Richard Asinof, April 4, 2011, Providence Business News: “Children in Rhode Island saw improvements in health and education, and declines in safety and economic well-being in the last year, according to the 2011 Rhode Island Kids Count Factbook. The 17th annual benchmark report on children’s health and well-being, which charts 67 different aspects of children’s lives, was released Monday at a policy breakfast at the Crowne Plaza Hotel Providence Warwick in Warwick. The event was attended by more than 500 community and business leaders, including Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee, U.S. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed, U.S. Rep. James R. Langevin and Providence Mayor Angel Taveras…”

Poverty takes toll on Utah kids, By Kirsten Stewart, March 31, 2011, Salt Lake Tribune: “If the well-being of Utah’s kids is a measure of the state’s overall fitness, then the 2011 ‘Kids Count’ shows the heavy toll of the recession. For 16 years, Voices for Utah Children has collected data on kids - from infant mortality to teen birth rates - as part of research sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore. Year after year, the numbers show Utah generally does well by its kids. The past two years were no different, except for a marked increase in poverty, said Terry Haven, the project’s director in Utah. Unemployment in families has grown, as has their use of food stamps and the number of students on free or reduced-price lunches…”

Apartheid-style neglect of kids continues, By Charl Du Plessis, March 24, 2011, Sunday Times: “So says a report, a collaboration between the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) and the SA Human Rights Commission, released yesterday. It details how the country fails the most vulnerable. The report said that 64%, or 11.9million of the country’s 18.6million children, live in poverty, and four out of 10 children live in households in which none of the adults work. About 1.7million children lived in shacks, 1.4million relied on rivers or streams as their main source of water, and 1.5million had no toilet in their home. African children were 18 times more likely to grow up in poverty and 12 times more likely to experience hunger than white children. The worst-hit areas of ‘multiple deprivation’ were still former homelands, said the report, which drew on data from the Statistics SA general household survey and other surveys. Children are failed primarily by the health and education systems…”

NJ Kids Count report on children shows some progress, but more live in poverty, By Michael Symons, March 23, 2011, Asbury Park Press: “Fewer children in New Jersey are dying as infants, missing out on preschool and being arrested as juveniles, according to a report card published Wednesday that also warns that the number living in poverty, missing recommended immunizations and being repeatedly abused is rising. In all, the first New Jersey Kids Count Report Card, added this year to the annual Kids Count report by Advocates for Children of New Jersey, found conditions have improved for children in four of 15 areas examined, worsened in seven and stayed level in four. Cecilia Zalkind, the executive director of the advocacy group, said some of the areas of improvements are particularly important, including the increase in the number of children with health insurance - which was up by 44,000 between 2005 and 2009, leaving 9 percent of kids, more than half of them low-income, uninsured in 2009…”

Child poverty rate rose, racial gap widened, in Minnesota, By Jeremy Olson, March 16, 2011, Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune: “Minnesota’s child poverty rate leapt to 14 percent in 2009 — with minority families faring worst — despite a high rate of working parents, according to a new report by the state branch of the Children’s Defense Fund. While Minnesota had the nation’s fifth-lowest rate for white children that year, its child poverty rate for Asian- Americans was the highest in the nation and its rate for African-American children was fifth highest. The racial divide was one of several showing a widening gap between haves and have-nots in Minnesota, said Kara Arzamendia, research director of Children’s Defense Fund - Minnesota, which produces the annual state Kids Count report…”

• More Colorado kids slipping into poverty, report says, By Karen Auge, March 10, 2011, Denver Post: “In one of the first comprehensive looks at how the recession has affected families, the Colorado Children’s Campaign reports that the state’s children continued a slide into poverty that began a decade ago and accelerated as hard times hit. According to the 2011 Kids Count in Colorado! report being released today, another 31,000 children slipped into poverty in 2009, bringing the total to 17 percent of all children, up from 15 percent the year before…”
• Report: Recession sends more Colorado kids into deep poverty, By Barbara Cotter, March 10, 2011, Colorado Springs Gazette: “In a state where the number of children living in poverty has been growing faster than anywhere else in the United States, the recession was bound to make a bad situation worse. And it did. According to the ‘2011 Kids Count in Colorado’ report, released Thursday by the nonprofit Colorado Children’s Campaign, the number of Colorado children living in poverty went up by 17 percent from 2008 to 2009, with minority kids faring even worse. Median family incomes dropped by $1,800 and the number of homeless students enrolled in public schools jumped 53 percent from the 2006-07 school year. Another sobering statistic: The number of children whose families live in extreme poverty - defined as a family of four making $11,000 or less annually - climbed from 65,000 in 2008 to 95,000 in 2009…”

30 percent of Ohio kids overweight, study shows, By Catherine Candisky, March 3, 2011, Columbus Dispatch: “Despite increased efforts to combat childhood obesity, the percentage of overweight children in Ohio remains at more than 30, virtually unchanged in the past five years, a state health department study released yesterday found. State officials said the findings mirror national data for all states. The causes are no surprise: lack of exercise, poor diet, poverty, lack of access to healthy foods. The study included some alarming statistics. For example, 40 percent of third-grade students drink more than two sugar-sweetened drinks a day, and youngsters who watch three or more hours of television a day were more likely to be overweight and obese than those who spend less time on the couch. Still, officials say the good news is that childhood obesity has not gotten worse…”

Number of children abused or neglected in Colorado rises, By Karen Auge, February 28, 2011, Denver Post: “The number of abused or neglected children in Colorado has risen over the past three years, even as the numbers in other states have declined - with 36 children killed by abuse in 2009, up from 27 in 2007. After a dip between 2006 and 2007, the rates of confirmed child abuse and neglect in the state have increased: from 8.3 per 1,000 in 2007, to 8.6 in 2008, to 9.1 per 1,000 in 2009, the latest year for which statistics are available. In 2009, 11,339 of Colorado’s 1.2 million children were maltreated, 641 more than the previous year, according to data collected by the Colorado Department of Human Services child welfare division and provided by the Kempe Center, which treats abused children. During the past two years, 1,236 additional children were abused and neglected compared with 2007. It is not uncommon for more children to get hurt by adults when a stalled economy piles stress on a family, child welfare experts say. Still, states across the country - states where the economy is as bad as or worse than it is in Colorado - reported decreases…”

• One billion people forgotten in fight against poverty, By Annie Kelly, February 25, 2011, The Guardian: “This year Unicef’s annual flagship State of the World’s Children report, released on Friday, focuses exclusively on adolescents. A recognition, says Unicef, of the increasingly urgent need to invest in the world’s 1.2 billion 10-19 year olds, an invisible generation who are nevertheless pivotal in global efforts to reach the UN millenium development goals targets by 2015. The report argues that adolescents are often marginalised in development budgets and programming, and that if this is not corrected then investment in global poverty, health, education and employment goals will be compromised. Many of the world’s teenagers were babies or young children when the MDGs were established in 2000. Since then, many of them will have been the direct beneficiaries of the significant global gains in child survival, primary education, access to safe water and sanitation…”
• Indian teen girls most ill-fed: UN, By Chetan Chauhan, February 25, 2011, Hindustan Times: “Indian adolescents girls are worse than even those in world’s poorest region — Sub-Saharan Africa - in terms of nutrition and empowerment whereas a majority of boys are at high risk because of their sexual activity, a new United Nations report on adolescents on Friday said. The report, ‘Adolescence an Age of Opportunity’, released three days before the union budget had found that 63 per cent of the Indian boys in the age group of 15-19 were engaged in high-risk sex with non-marital, non-cohabitating partner as compared to just one percent girls in the same age group. Still it was lowest in the developing world with the highest being in South Africa with 95 % boys and 99 % girls reporting high risk sex. The report found sexual activity among Asian children below the age of 15, including India, to be lowest in the world…”

• Group says early education investment saves money, By Zachary Colman (AP), February 17, 2011, Chicago Tribune: “With more Illinois children falling into poverty, investing in early childhood education today could save the state millions of dollars in the future, an advocacy group said Thursday. Voices for Illinois Children acknowledged the state has a huge budget deficit and is cutting many programs. But the group’s president, former state lawmaker Kathy Ryg, said services for children in fourth grade and below should be spared from budget cuts if the state wants to prevent a drain on social services when the children are older…”
• Organization reports disparities in children’s reading skills, By Kathy Millen, February 18, 2011, Naperville Sun: “If the measure of reading skills at the beginning of fourth grade is a predictor of future success, then many Illinois children may be looking at a lifetime of struggles. By the time they’re leaving third grade, children typically make the transition from learning to read to reading to learn. But in recent years, reading scores at these grade levels have barely improved in Illinois. Wide disparities among student groups remain, especially among the 45 percent of public school students who come from low-income families. That was the conclusion of a report from Voices for Illinois Children, a group focusing on improving the lives of children throughout the state…”
• Report shows Knox County students perform better than state averages, By Tom Loewy, February 18, 2011, Galesburg Register-Mail: “An annual report focused on the well-being of Illinois’ children released more data Thursday that showed an increasing number of kids in Knox County live in households struggling to make ends meet. But the Voices for Illinois Children’s ‘2011 Illinois Kids Count’ data reports did show that despite economic and social challenges, Knox County’s third-graders performed above the state averages on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test during the 2009-2010 school year. According to ‘2011 Illinois Kids Count,’ 81.8 percent of third-graders in Knox County meet or exceed the state standard in reading. Only 73.7 percent of their counterparts in the state meet or exceed the state standard in reading…”

• Kids Count report shows poverty, test scores up in Greater Muskegon area, By Lynn Moore, February 8, 2011, Muskegon Chronicle: “‘Resilient.’ It’s a word educators use to describe students who deal every day with poverty, the stress of job losses in their homes and even neglect, and yet show up to school ready to learn and achieve. Teachers hear the stories about the heat being turned off in students’ homes. They can tell when a student’s day got off to a rough start, even before they walk in the classroom. And they’ve seen the growing lines of children taking advantage of free breakfast programs in school cafeterias. And yet, according to the annual Kids Count report released today, despite worsening conditions in their lives, children’s performance in school is improving. While childhood poverty and the often related incidents of child abuse and neglect are increasing, so are the numbers of students who are passing state assessment tests and staying in school…”
• Poverty, abuse surge among Michigan children, By Catherine Jun, February 8, 2011, Detroit News: “Nearly half of Michigan’s public school students qualified for free and reduced-price lunches in 2009, just one troubling statistic on how the economic crisis has affected the state’s youngest residents. The rate of those who qualified jumped 26 percent in three years, rising to almost 46 percent of children in 2009 from 36 percent in 2006, according to the annual “Kids Count in Michigan” report released today. In Detroit, 81 percent qualified. The lunches, funded by the federal government, are designed for students whose families have gross incomes below $40,200 for a two-parent family of four…”
• More than one-fourth of Saginaw County children living in poverty, By Lindsay Knake, February 8, 2011, Saginaw News: “More than one quarter of Saginaw County children and teens live in poverty. The Michigan League for Human Services and Michigan’s Children partnered for Kids Count, a project to measure the well-being of Michigan children, released state and county data about children’s education and health. Michigan’s Children is a group that works with lawmakers, business leaders and communities to promote children’s prosperity…”
• More kids in Michigan are raised in poverty, By Kathleen Lavey, February 7, 2011, Lansing State Journal: “More kids are slipping into poverty due to Michigan’s fragile economy, putting them at higher risk for abuse and neglect. That’s the word from the new Kids Count in Michigan survey, which compiles data on the well-being of kids and families. ‘Child poverty is such a critical issue,’ said Jane Zehnder-Merrell, project director for Kids Count in Michigan and senior research associate at the Michigan League for Human Services. ‘It has an impact on outcomes for kids across the board…’”

Early childhood education benefits both kids, taxpayers, study says, By Liz Szabo, February 3, 2011, USA Today: “Investing in early childhood education can yield impressive economic benefits - both for children and taxpayers, according to a National Institutes of Health study that followed participants until age 26. Each dollar spent on Chicago-based, federally funded Child-Parent Centers generates $4 to $11 in return, both because children finished high school or college, earning more than their peers, and also because participants were less likely to be held back, arrested, depressed, involved with drugs or sick, the study says. That’s up to an 18% annual rate of return, says Arthur Reynolds, a professor at the University of Minnesota and lead author of the study, published today in Child Development…”

• For Milwaukee’s children, an early grave, By Crocker Stephenson, January 22, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “On a bitter January afternoon, a 22-year-old mother sits on the edge of her bed and feeds her infant daughter. The child, Rashyia, born in December, is healthy. She coos, eyes closed. She touches her mother’s cheek with her perfect hand. Rashyia and her mother, Lakisha Stinson, live in a small attic apartment on Milwaukee’s near north side. Three modest rooms. The kitchen has just three chairs and a table that is missing its glass top. The living room has no furniture. The bedroom has a bed and a Pack ‘n Play crib, a gift from Wheaton Franciscan-St. Joseph’s Hospital, whose staff, nurses and doctors brought Rashyia through a high-risk pregnancy and into the world. Rashyia and her mother live in a neighborhood where the rate at which African-American babies, such as Rashyia, die during their first year of life is worse than Botswana. Public health experts have long considered the infant mortality rate to be an essential indicator of a community’s well-being…”
• It takes a community to keep babies alive, Editorial, January 22, 2011, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Milwaukee’s littlest children are dying at appalling rates - rates that are among the worst in the country; rates that rival the world’s poorest nations. These are babies who never live to blow out their first birthday candle - three-quarters of them dead before they are a month old. They are babies such as the little boy born prematurely to Denelle McManus in January 2007. Denelle was in good health; she had good prenatal care; she didn’t smoke or drink. She was 32 years old when she lost her child. The boy, named Tavion, lived eight days before dying of a heart condition. Denelle’s mother, Patricia McManus, is chief executive of the Black Health Coalition of Wisconsin. An expert in urban issues, McManus has worked 30 years to reduce Milwaukee’s infant mortality rate and now believes that it will take a communitywide effort to save these children, an effort that is beginning to take shape with McManus as one of the leaders…”

• Behavioral, mental health problems play big role in other childhood issues, By Erin Andersen, January 25, 2011, Lincoln Journal Star: “One in 10 Nebraska kids is not all right. One in 10 suffers from some sort of behavioral health problem, according to the 2010 Kids Count in Nebraska report being issued Tuesday by Voices for Children. Those kids — with behavioral, emotional and psychological troubles — make up more than 26 percent of children in foster care, 65 to 70 percent of the children in the juvenile justice system and a disproportionate number of school drop-outs and children in poverty, said Melissa Breazile, research coordinator for Voices for Children in Nebraska. This year’s Kids Count report is a mixed bag. While graduation rates have increased and dropout, school expulsion and infant mortality rates have dipped, poverty and its many related issues have increased — some rather significantly…”
• Kids Count sounds alarm on cuts, By Sam Womack, January 25, 2011, Omaha World-Herald: “In 2008, 34 youths with a history of behavioral health problems were dropped off at ’safe haven’ locations throughout the state. In response, the state enacted big changes. The Legislature limited the safe abandonment law to infants less than 30 days old. In mid-2009 it passed legislation that created programs to connect families with resources to manage child behavioral health issues. This year, several of those services are on the chopping block. As a response, the 2010 Kids Count report focuses on Nebraska’s estimated 90,000 youths with mental, emotional or behavioral disorders, the services available and the need for more preventive action. Kids Count is compiled by Voices for Children, a statewide research and policy group that times the release of its report to the start of new state legislative sessions…”

Majority of Palestinian youth living in poverty, January 13, 2011, The Daily Star: “Around 70 percent of Palestinian refugee children and adolescents in Lebanon live in poverty, according to a report released Wednesday. A further 9 percent of young people aged between 6 and 19 live in ‘extreme poverty’ on less than $2 a day, unable to meet basic daily food requirements, the Socio-Economic Survey of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon said. Conducted by researchers from the American University of Beirut in coordination with United Nations Relief and Work Agency, the report is thought to be the first comprehensive evaluation of the living conditions of the country’s registered Palestinian refugees…”

Despite predictions, new report shows decrease in number of US children suffering abuse, By David Crary (AP), December 16, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “The rate of child maltreatment in the U.S. decreased in 2009 for the third consecutive year, according to new federal figures. Although the decrease was slight, it ran counter to the predictions of some experts that the onset of the recession in late 2008 would trigger an upsurge of abuse. The annual report from the Department of Health and Human Services, issued Thursday, said the estimated number of victimized children dropped from 772,000 in 2008 to 763,000 last year. That’s down from 903,000 in 2006. The rate of abuse was 10.1 per 1,000 children, down from 10.3 in 2008, to reach the lowest level since the current tracking system began in 1990. The number of fatalities arising from abuse and neglect, however, rose slightly, from 1,740 in 2008 to 1,770 last year…”

Following Felix: Special education in Hawaii 5 years after federal oversight, series homepage, December 15, 2010, Honolulu Star-Advertiser.

• Child poverty ‘rises’ among working households, December 6, 2010, BBC News: “Child poverty within working households is rising and now accounts for 58% of all UK cases, a report has found. A Joseph Rowntree Foundation report says there are 2.1 million impoverished youngsters in homes where parents are in work - up slightly on last year. Co-author Tom MacInnes said it showed work alone was not the answer to lifting people above the bread line. The Department for Work and Pensions said it was reforming the welfare system to ensure work always paid. Overall, the number of children living in poverty fell to 3.7 million, the report called Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion found…”
• Record levels of poverty among families with wages, By Jonathan Owen, December 5, 2010, The Independent: “A record number of children in the UK are living in poverty despite the fact that one or both of their parents work, according to a new report to be published tomorrow. The figure of 2.1 million is the highest on record - up 400,000 in the past five years, undermining the oft-repeated claim that people simply have to work their way out of poverty. The new figure accounts for more than half of the 3.7 million children living in poverty in Britain today, according to researchers from the New Policy Institute (NPI) who produced the report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF). It is perhaps the most damning element of an analysis of the past decade, showing how initial progress in some areas has halted or been reversed…”
• Most children living in poverty are not from workless households, report finds, By Karen McVeigh, December 6, 2010, The Guardian: “The number of children of working parents who are living in poverty in the UK has risen to an unprecedented 2.1 million, a report has found. A report for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation found that while the number of impoverished children dropped overall to 3.7 million, the majority are now from homes where a parent or carer is working, accounting for 58% of the total. The number who live in workless households fell to 1.6 million - the lowest figure since 1984 - according to the Monitoring Poverty and Social Exclusion report…”

Rich countries let poorest children fall behind, By Laurie Monsebraaten, December 2, 2010, Toronto Star: “Canadian children suffer greater income inequality than most developed nations, says a new UNICEF report being released Friday. The report, which for the first time ranks 24 countries in the Organization for Economic and Co-operative Development (OECD) in terms of equality in children’s health, education and material well-being, shows children in many rich nations are being left behind. ‘Falling behind is a critical issue not only for millions of individual children today, but for the economic and social future of their nations tomorrow,’ the report argues. The report, entitled, ‘The Children Left Behind,’ looked at inequality in child well-being by measuring the gap between the average child and the most disadvantaged children in three aspects of their lives - material well-being, educational achievement and physical health…”

• Few bright spots in new Kids Count report, By Ruth Campbell, November 30, 2010, Fort Scott Tribune: “Although Bourbon County surpasses its peers and the state in percentage of mothers who get prenatal care and has a lower percentage of low birth-weight babies than the rest of Kansas, its infant mortality rate rate is among the worst in the state, according to data from a Kids County report released Tuesday. Kansas Kids Count is produced by Kansas Action for Children and funded in part by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Kansas Action for Children is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to shaping policy that improves the lives of Kansas children and families. Data collection and analysis were provided by the Kansas Health Institute, according to the report…”
• Economic recession taking a toll on Kansas children, reports indicate, By Scott Rothschild, November 30, 2010, Lawrence Journal-World: “Many Kansas children aren’t faring well, according to two reports released Tuesday. In its annual survey, Kansas Action for Children said the troubled economic times are having an impact on youngsters. ‘As more working families struggle to make ends meet, more children are relying on free and reduced school lunches and more children are growing up without health coverage,’ said Shannon Cotsoradis, president of KAC. The new Kansas KIDS COUNT data showed that 45 percent of Kansas school children receive free or reduced lunch, 40 percent of children are growing up in low-income households, and 10 percent of Kansas children are uninsured…”
• Kids Count releases data, By Angela Deines, November 30, 2010, Topeka Capital-Journal: “When it comes to mothers getting adequate prenatal care, children getting properly immunized and the number of violent teen deaths, Shawnee County fares well compared to statewide numbers in the latest Kansas Kids Count data. ‘The good news is your immunizations are up,’ said Shannon Cotsoradis, executive director of Kansas Action for Children. ‘But the economic indicators aren’t as good.’ The report, a joint effort by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Kansas Action for Children, shows higher poverty rates for Shawnee County children than the statewide rate and one out of two children qualify for free or reduced-price lunch…”
• Study: More Kansas kids in poverty, By Matthew Clark, December 1, 2010, Pittsburg Morning Sun: “More Kansas children are living in poverty and those who already are have seen their conditions worsen. That is the result of the KIDS COUNT study, which was released on Tuesday by the Kansas Action for Children (KAC) and The Annie E. Casey Foundation. The study concluded that approximately 45 percent of Kansas school children are participating in free and reduced lunches and 40 percent are growing up in low-income (23.08 percent) or poverty-stricken (17.33 percent) households. In addition, one in 10 Kansas children are currently not covered by health insurance…”

• 1 in 10 Canadian children living in poverty: Report, By Amy Minsky, November 24, 2010, Montreal Gazette: “One in 10 Canadian children is living in poverty, according to a report on the status of child and family poverty released Wednesday. With Parliament’s self-imposed deadline long past, it still has far to go on the promise it made 21 years ago to eradicate child poverty by 2000. The most recent numbers show there is a 9.1 per cent rate of child poverty in Canada, down slightly from 11.9 per cent in 1989, the year Parliament unanimously resolved to end child poverty, it says in Campaign 2000’s report card, which cites data from 2008..”
• One in seven B.C. children living in poverty, Canadian Press, November 24, 2010, Globe and Mail: “An anti-poverty group says one in seven children in B.C. is living in poverty and the recession will likely make things worse. In releasing its annual report Wednesday, the BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition said while the child poverty rate dropped in 2008, the recession was also starting, and it’s almost certain to produce higher poverty figures for 2009 and 2010…”

• Report shows fourth-grade students in N.J. public, charter schools have same passing rates, By Rohan Mascarenhas, November 10, 2010, Star-Ledger: “Some public schools in Newark are among the best in the city, performing as well as charters in certain areas, according to the annual Kids Count survey to be released today. Comparing test scores and demographic data, the report found public schools had the same passing rates on average as charters at the fourth grade level, thanks to a decade of significant academic gains. The data appears to contradict the prevailing assumption about the consistent high quality of charter schools and their reputation as a panacea. It also belies the rhetoric from politicians and educators that Newark schools are uniformly bad…”
• Newark rents rise, incomes are stagnant, and more kids on food stamps, report shows, By Rohan Mascarenhas, November 11, 2010, Star-Ledger: “A study released today painted a grim picture of social and economic struggles in the state’s largest city. Rents in Newark have spiked, and more city kids are on food stamps, while income levels are remaining stagnant, according to the annual Kids Count survey published by the Advocates for Children in New Jersey. The report found that median rents rose 22 percent between 2005 and 2009. At the same time, the average income for Newarkers increased only one percent. Compiling statistics on welfare and demographic data, the survey offers a snapshot of the recession’s impact in Newark, where the unemployment rate hovers around 15 percent. Over the past five years, the number of Newark children on food stamps has jumped sharply, rising 33 percent, the report said…”

• Census finds single mothers and live-in partners, By Tamar Lewin, November 5, 2010, New York Times: “More than a quarter of the unmarried women who gave birth in a recent year were living with a partner, according to a Census Bureau report that for the first time measured the percentage of unmarried mothers who were not living alone. ‘Everybody tends to think of single mothers as being alone with their child, and we wanted to look at whether that was true,’ said Jane Dye, the demographer who wrote the report, ‘Fertility of American Women: 2008.’ ‘We found that 28 percent of these women were living with an unmarried partner, whether opposite sex or same sex.’ While cohabitation has increased enormously over the last generation, the catchall category of ’single mother’ has often blurred the difference between those living alone and those living with a partner…”
• Facing 72 percent rate of unwed mothers, blacks explore reasons and answers, By Jesse Washington (AP), November 6, 2010, Los Angeles Times: “One recent day at Dr. Natalie Carroll’s OB-GYN practice, located inside a low-income apartment complex tucked between a gas station and a freeway, 12 pregnant black women come for consultations. Some bring their children or their mothers. Only one brings a husband. Things move slowly here. Women sit shoulder-to-shoulder in the narrow waiting room, sometimes for more than an hour. Carroll does not rush her mothers in and out. She wants her babies born as healthy as possible, so Carroll spends time talking to the mothers about how they should care for themselves, what she expects them to do - and why they need to get married. Seventy-two percent of black babies are born to unmarried mothers today, according to government statistics. This number is inseparable from the work of Carroll, an obstetrician who has dedicated her 40-year career to helping black women…”

Researchers fight to save the region’s tiniest babies, By Josh Goldstein, October 25, 2010, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Delivered by cesarean section 11 weeks early, Quinzel Kane Jr. was so tiny that his 1.6-pound body nearly fit in his father’s hand. A week later, the child developed a leaky bowel - a common problem in underweight babies - and was rushed to St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. Over the next few months, specialists there would fight to keep him from becoming part of a grim statistic: the high infant mortality rate in pockets across the region. Philadelphia’s infant mortality rate stands among the nation’s highest - rivaling Detroit’s and Baltimore’s - and is on par with those of Uruguay in South America and Bosnia in eastern Europe. But the rates are high too in some suburban towns, such as Upper Darby and Norristown. And while murders grab far more attention here, the number of infant deaths is actually greater across the region…”

City’s teen birthrate heading downward, By Karen Herzog, October 28, 2010, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: “Milwaukee’s teen birthrate - the second highest in the nation less than a decade ago- is dropping at a pace that could put it near the much lower state average by 2015, according to data released Wednesday by public health officials.
‘We know there’s much work to get done, but we should all feel encouraged this trend is going in the right direction,’ said Bevan Baker, Milwaukee’s health commissioner. Baker is co-chair of a United Way of Greater Milwaukee advisory committee that set a goal in 2008 of reducing the city’s teen birthrate, which hovered in 2006 at 52 births per 1,000 teens ages 15 to 17. By 2015, the goal is 30 births per 1,000 teens in that age group. The committee targeted new pregnancy prevention efforts starting with fourth-graders because they would turn 17 in 2015…”