National Association of Counties * Washington, D.C.            Vol. 31, No. 12 * June 21, 1999

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Despite Booming Economy, Future of 9.2 Million Kids are Still at High Risk

An alarming number of America’s youth are growing up outside the reach of the continuing economic boom, hampered by extraordinarily difficult family conditions that could increase their odds of failure, according to the 1999 edition of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Book.

The book, which provides a comprehensive state-by-state statistical assessment of the well-being of the nation’s children, reports that the futures of 9.2 million American children – one in seven – are at serious risk due to a combination of four or more chronic family conditions.

These conditions include growing up in a single-parent home, having parents with low educational attainment, living in poverty, having parents who are not in the work force, being dependent on welfare and lacking health insurance.

Of the many complex variables that shape children’s futures, research shows that none is more important in determining a child’s chance of success in life than the contributions that are made by parents. "Children growing up with four or more risks simply face far greater odds of failure than the average American child," says Douglas W. Nelson, president of the Casey Foundation.

The report’s key findings

• Approximately 26 percent of kids with four or more family risk factors were high school dropouts in 1998, compared to only 1 percent of kids with none of the risks.
• Sixteen percent of high-risk females ages 15 to 19 were teenage mothers, compared to only one-tenth of 1 percent of those with none of the risks.
• Twenty-five percent of high-risk kids are in rural areas, 44 percent are in central cities and 31 percent are in suburbs.
• Nearly 30 percent of all black children and nearly 25 percent of all Hispanic children are in the high-risk category.
• Community conditions can be powerful subverters of family strength, the report finds. High levels of crime and violence and concentrated poverty undermine family life and make it all the more difficult to change circumstances.

Copies of the 199 KIDS COUNT Data Book can be obtained by contacting Diane Camper at the Annie E. Casey Foundation at 410/223-2948, www.kidscount.org.

Awards Program to Highlight Community Efforts that Help High–Risk Children With the support of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, NACo – along with five other national organizations representing the nation’s local governments and school systems that comprise the Local Collaboration for Children and Youth – are working together to help identify community collaborations that support children and families. For the third year, the Local Collaboration is conducting a national awards program to showcase successful models of community partnerships that promote: prevention and the developmental needs of the whole child and family, intervention at the earliest possible age services brought to the child and the child’s family integration of child and family, and community-wide neighborhood transformation. The deadline for this year’s awards program has been extended until July 15. Copies of the awards application can be obtained by contacting Sandy Markwood at NACo at 202/942-4235, fax on demand at 732/578-4474 or connecting to the NACo Web site at http://199.10.10.14/programs/social/99awards.cfm.

(County Services News was written by Sandy Markwood, deputy director, County Services Department.)