Advocacy

The Twenty-first Century Child of Northwest Indiana

An Initiative Developed to Ensure Success by Six

Written by Cheryl W. DeLeón, Ph.D. and Mary Jane Eisenhauer, Ph.D.

Published on Thursday, 01 September 2011

Introduction

For decades in Northwest Indiana, policies have been enacted and services have been available to young children with the sole purpose of improving their condition. Those services are as diversified as the children whose needs these services meet. There is home-based care for children alone, in groups or care given in centers. There are services available to children whose development may be challenged by socioeconomic conditions developmental disabilities, mental health issues, or family trauma. Regardless of what type of service being provided, or policy for which they are advocating, the groups share one common goal; to improve the young child’s circumstances early in his or her development, recognizing that such an investment can lead to favorable outcomes (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). One such initiative created to advocate for urban and rural children developing in Northwest Indiana, and supported by all of the United Way programs in Northwest Indiana is Success by 6.

Indiana Association of United Ways Principles for Standardizing Child Care Regulations

Indiana Association of United Ways Principles for Standardizing Child Care Regulations:

All children deserve quality child care, no matter what type of care their parents or caregivers select. The State of Indiana has an obligation to help ensure parents have access to quality care and that information about quality is transparent.
Parent choice is an important value, and the regulations should reflect a range of options that provide comparable quality standards in different settings.
Changes to regulations should standardize regulations rather than adding complexity or opportunities for parent confusion.
The State of Indiana has a fiscal and programmatic responsibility to ensure that CCDF vouchers are maximized and are used in quality settings that advance other goals for children (good health, safety, early learning and literacy).
The Bureau should continue recent efforts to improve care including Paths to QUALITY, active technical assistance with providers and professional development for staff working in child care settings.
The Bureau should monitor compliance with requirements and effects of changes in requirements. Ideally, various state agencies would monitor long-term effects of quality indicators on health, safety and early learning.

Head Start Wages Could to be Drastically Cut

03 February 2011

Letter from Leonard Jozwiak, Vice President, Geminus Head Start

"The Head Start community is highly concerned about Senate Bill 196 eliminating unemployment benefits for Head Start teachers and other staff.

Head Start teachers, since the program is entirely federally funded, are only paid on an hourly basis of $12 t0 $14 per hour for an annual wage range $18,470 to $21,546! Unemployment compensation has always been considered supplemental compensation, available to Head Start staff across the country in order to provide a more competitive wage, particularly since the Head Start year is also slightly shorter than the standard public school year providing for fewer income earning days.

Passage of this bill would be highly detrimental to sustaining Head Start staff and services throughout the State jeopardizing the maintenance of the $107,537,000 federal dollars that currently flow into Indiana to support the scope of quality Head Start services provided.

We respectfully request your rejection of this legislation, SB 196, as a detriment to sustaining Head Start services to Indiana’s most needy children and families."

Click here for an Indiana Head Start fact sheet for your reference.

Social Policy Report

Protecting Children from Exposure to Lead: Old Problem, New Data, and New Policy Needs

Claire Cole & Adam Winsler | George Mason University

The detrimental effects of lead exposure in children have been known for over 100 years. Although a few initial measures implemented about 30 years ago were effective in somewhat reducing levels of lead exposure in children, relatively little has been done recently from a policy perspective to protect children from lead. We now know from recent research that much more work is needed. Recent events highlighted in the media show that several urban communities still have unacceptable levels of lead in water systems. Early research identifi ed high levels of lead as being particularly detrimental to children’s intellectual and behavioral development. However, new studies have discovered that lower levels of lead, levels once thought safe, also cause considerable damage to children’s developmental outcomes. This social policy report summarizes new data on the intellectual, academic, and behavioral defi cits seen in children exposed to both low and high levels of lead, discusses the biological and neurological mechanisms of lead poisoning, explores sources of environmental lead exposure and lead abatement practices, shows that current federal and state-level child screening and lead level reporting practices are inadequate, and makes policy recommendations centered on increasing education, intensifying abatement efforts, strengthening and regulating mandatory screening practices, and reducing the federal threshold of allowable levels of lead.

Click here for the rest of the study.

HS Impact Study

Society for Research in Child Development
1313 L Street, NW, Suite 140 • Washington, DC 20005 USA
Tel: 202.289-7905 • Fax: 202.289-4203 • Website: www.srcd.org

Placing the First-Year Findings of the National Head Start Impact Study in Context

This document provides a summary of the first-year findings of the Head Start Impact Study. It also aims to help policy makers, practitioners, and the interested public interpret the Head Start Impact Study’s first-year findings by placing the results to date in the context of other research on children’s development.2 The overview presented here applies to data collected after only 9 months of Head Start. Further information on the points below must await future reports.

Statistically significant effects of Head Start were consistently positive.

Evaluators tested 30 outcomes for each of the two groups targeted (3-year-olds and 4-year-olds who had entered Head Start that year). For each of the groups, the number of statistically significant effects found exceeded what one would expect by chance.3 When statistically significant effects occurred, they were without exception positive (increases in "good" outcomes, decreases in "bad" outcomes). These effects included: better skills in aspects of pre-reading and pre-writing, more access to dental care, better overall physical health, less hyperactivity, fewer behavior problems, and better parenting (more frequent reading to children and lower rates of corporal punishment). No impact of Head Start was found for either of the two age groups on oral comprehension, phonological awareness, early math, aggressive or withdrawn behaviors, social skills, or parental safety practices.