Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 6, 1994 TAG: 9402070257
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: C2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CABELL BRAND
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Total Action Against Poverty is proud of its record on behalf of children and their families. Our Transitional Living Center, the Head Start program, the Comprehensive Health Investment Project, our Youth Services remedial education and employment programs are all aimed at meeting this great need. Yet, even the most extensive of these, Head Start and CHIP, have only the resources to meet 20 percent of the need.
During nearly 30 years of work with TAP, we've argued that a strong national defense and strong free-market economy aren't enough to make a great nation. We must also have a strong society, one in which all Americans are encouraged to develop to their full potential and become contributors, rather than liabilities, to our way of life.
Building a strong nation involves improved educational opportunities, neighborhood renewal, access to affordable housing, welfare reform, new strategies to reduce crime - all with high costs. Yet, building a strong nation starts with caring for America's children.
If TAP and community-action agencies like TAP had enough financial resources to bring all the eligible poor people into programs that deal with these problems and help them to end up with jobs, poverty could be solved in 10 to 15 years.
But there's another answer - a slower but surer way that costs a lot less money to solve the poverty problem in at least a generation. It's a vital part of the above-mentioned programs as well.
Focus on children. Focus on them the day they're born. Or better still, focus on the mothers with prenatal medical care and social services.
In her April 14, 1992, address to the National Press Club, Marian Wright Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund, proposed an agenda to address the condition of children who constitute the largest single poverty sector in America. She called for a Fair Start, a Healthy Start and a Head Start for all children in need.
A Fair Start entails a new job at decent wages, a refundable children's tax credit, and a child-support insurance program while the government pursues financial cooperation from the nonresident parent.
A Healthy Start gives all pregnant women and children access to universal health care.
Head Start needs full funding so every poor child can participate. Here, it's proved that every dollar invested saves about $6 in later special education, welfare, crime, teen-age pregnancy and other costs.
The Roanoke and New River valleys have been in the process of fashioning a ``vision'' for the future. The dialogue has focused on many aspects of life that would make this area a world competitor. What better vision than that every eligible child in our area of Southwestern Virginia would have access to medical care with our CHIP program, plus two years of Head Start early-childhood education? This would help disadvantaged children compete with their peers in public school and prepare them for a life of self-sufficiency. The recent Chamber of Commerce 2000 study embraces both the full expansion of Head Start and CHIP to all eligible children in the Roanoke Valley.
Our innovative CHIP program helps bring the newborn child, with the mother and, it's hoped, the entire family, into society. It provides comprehensive health care for young children with help of a family-intervention specialist, a nurse as case manager, and private doctors who deliver the care. CHIP children have a chance to grow up healthy with nutrition, immunization and regular checkups. The focus is prevention and primary care. Unfortunately, when all our foundation and temporary grants expire, there's no permanent funding plan for CHIP.
Programs such as CHIP and Head Start help bring the family into the mainstream of society and provide hope. Most crime and drug problems are the result of frustration - the lack of hope. These positive programs for children reduce teen-age pregnancy and school dropouts, attack the root cause of welfare and do much more.
It's not a matter of knowledge, but of social will! And, it's a matter of political support for those who are not in the electorate. Children, the largest group in poverty, can't vote their own agenda.
The TAP Poverty Strategy Task Force called two years ago for a coalition of parents, child-serving professionals and other citizens who'd use its broad-based support to implement such an agenda. An Alliance for Children and Youth has been established under the umbrella of the Roanoke Valley Council of Community Services. It's our hope that every service club, church, human-service agency, local government and neighborhood organization will join this alliance to reach out to those who are both the most innocent and the most vulnerable in our community - our children.
Many local groups are working on these issues. But there isn't enough public money. If enough resources were available to implement these programs for children, the poverty problem in the TAP area and in the United States could be solved within about one generation. It's the best investment our society can make.
Cabell Brand of Salem is chairman of Total Action Against Poverty.
by CNB