ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 11, 1996 TAG: 9603110083
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A4 EDITION: METRO
WELFARE reform is high on the list of the nation's current priorities, as well it should be. But like so much else that answers to the name of "reform," the details can make all the difference.
That much is suggested by results of a new study of 790 welfare families in Atlanta. The study was conducted by a nonprofit research group, Child Trends Inc., for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
One key finding: Welfare children as young as 3, like children in poverty generally, already lagged far behind the average in their development of school-readiness skills and concepts. However, children who had help from their fathers' families, or contact with other caring adults, were doing better.
Another key finding: On a standard screening test, some 42 percent of welfare mothers - twice the average for the general population - showed signs of clinical depression. Previous studies have shown that maternal depression detracts from a child's well-being.
Those findings confirm a number of points made by welfare reformers.
That welfare dependency tends to perpetuate itself over succeeding generations, for example, is suggested by the finding that preschoolers in welfare families tend to have poor cognitive skills and understanding of spatial relationships. This not does not bode well for their chances in school, which does not bode well for their chances in life.
That welfare regulations should not discourage the presence of fathers in the household is suggested by the finding that contacts with more adults than the mother alone is a protective factor for young children.
That welfare should have work requirements for mothers of even very young children is suggested by the finding that the presence of the mother at home doesn't help much if the environment is one of poverty and, often, maternal depression.
But the findings also suggest the dangers of oversimplification.
Clinical depression, for example, can be both a cause and a consequence of inability to find employment. When it is a consequence, programs that move mothers from welfare to work can be a cure. But when it is a cause of unemployability, work requirements alone could make bad situations worse.
Moreover, regarding welfare reform as merely a device for short-term cost-cutting could deepen the prospective, and tragic, irony. Reform will do little for these at-risk children, for example, if high-quality day care is not somehow made available while their mothers are at work. Yet under welfare-reform plans proposed by state governors and in Congress, federal money to improve care for at-risk children would be cut nearly in half.
Welfare reform must begin, indeed already has begun. But the proper measure of success - reform's impact on the children of welfare - is too often overlooked. Focusing on it brings both the promises and perils of welfare reform into starker relief.
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