The Governor’s Children and Family Council received a sobering report on the well being of the territory’s children Thursday as the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands presented to them their annual Kids Count data book.
Kids Count is a national initiative supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation that tracks and correlates a broad range of data on the physical, economic and educational health of children. The survey is conducted by CFVI in the Virgin Islands.
Because of the amount of time it takes to collect the data, there is a two-year delay in the publishing of these reports. The statistics presented in the new report are based data collected in 2010.
The Governor’s Children and Family Council comprises the leaders of various government agencies and nonprofit organizations that deal with childcare. Judith Richardson, co-director of CFVI, said this was exactly the audience Kids Count is meant for.
“The whole purpose of Kids Count is to provide reliable data to the stakeholders in the community who will use that data to support innovations, programs and policies that will improve outcomes for our children and families,” she said.
Richardson urged the members of the council to share the data books with their staffs and consult them while planning programs.
“Please don’t put them on a shelf,” she said.
The data showed that the territory’s children were struggling in many areas, though the report was not without a few bright spots.
In 2010, the median income for V.I. families rose to $45,058 from $43,691 in 2009. However, the percentage of families with children living in poverty also increased. In 2010, the rate was 31 percent, up sharply from the 2009 figure of 24.9 percent.
The report also found that 48.4 percent of all households with children were single-mother families and that 47.8 percent of those families lived below the poverty line.
V.I. families were more reliant on government assistance in 2010. The Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program (TANF) expanded by 20 percent from 2009, with 1,718 children receiving benefits.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)also grew from 12,076 children enrolled in 2009 to 13,828 in 2010.
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) shrunk slightly from 4,438 children in 2009 to 4,368 in 2010.
In education, Kids Count identified early childhood education as being especially deficient. The report said that two out of five incoming kindergarten students lacked the cognitive skills expected in children that age and that more than half lagged behind in language and communications skills.
In the upper grades, the picture was better. The territory met its adequate yearly progress goals (AYP) in math. In grades three through eight, 56 percent of students performed at or above proficiency. In 11th grade, 53 percent did. The AYP goals for the two age groups were 53.8 percent and 52 percent respectively.
Students fell behind in reading, however. Only 46 percent of students in grades three through eight were at or above proficiency, well below the 53.3 percent goal. Performance was worse in 11th grade where a meager 38.4 percent were at or above proficiency. The goal was 55.6 percent.
The territory is also falling behind in the health and safety of its children.
While the infant mortality rate rose (6.6 per 1,000 in 2010 versus 5.7 per 1,000 in 2009) it still remained below the national average. However, the teen mortality rate (all deaths amongst 15- to 18-year-olds) was almost three times the national average at 145 per 100,000.
The teen birth rate dropped from 51.3 births to 43.4 births per 1,000 girls. Babies born to 15- to 19-year-olds accounted for 10 percent of all live births in the territory, however.
Only 45 percent of children between 1 ½ and 3 years old were up to date on their vaccinations and 27 percent lacked any type of health insurance.
The report also studied risky behavior amongst youth. In a poll of sixth- through 12th-graders, 32 percent admitted to engaging in a physical fight in the last year and 11 percent reported carrying a weapon in the last month. Nine percent reported being threatened or injured by a weapon on school property in the past year.
By far the most shocking statistic was that almost 20 percent of polled public school students admitted to having sex before the age of 13.
Dee Baecher-Brown, president of CFVI, said the best way to make progress on reversing these trends is to focus on early childhood education. She said studies have found that children who receive support and intellectual stimulation in the earliest years have better outcomes later in life.
Baecher-Brown said during the current economic crisis, CFVI would appeal to government leaders to leave childhood programs untouched and that investing more in the territory’s children could actually help the government’s long-term financial outlook.
“There are so many reports that have been done that document the financial value of investing in the earliest years. So in tough economic times, if we’re really looking at hard questions, we should be looking at some of the economics of investing in early childhood,” she said.
