ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 15, 1996 TAG: 9603150048
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
Children in the Roanoke and New River valleys are generally faring better than those in other Virginia localities, according to a report compiled by a child advocacy organization.
The exception is the city of Roanoke, where more families are headed by single women, more families live below the poverty level and more teens are having babies than the state as a whole.
"Kids Count in Virginia" - a first-time statistical report on the condition of the state's 1.5 million children that was sponsored by the Action Alliance for Virginia's Children and Youth - put Roanoke's rate of teen births at 79.6 per 1,000 births in 1995, nearly double the state rate of 40.6.
Roanoke's rate of babies born to girls ages 15-19, as well as the rate for the entire state, deserves close watching, Susan Gholston, Kids Count project director, said Thursday.
"Virginia as a whole has a problem with births to unmarried teens compared to the rest of the nation," she said. "That's an area that we probably need to target as a state."
Thirty-one percent of Roanoke families with children are headed by a single women, compared with 17 percent statewide. Thirteen percent of Roanoke's families live below the poverty level, compared with 8 percent statewide.
In Roanoke, 19 percent of teens are not attending school and did not graduate from high school, compared with 10 percent statewide.
"The city of Roanoke has really got some more intense problems than some of the adjoining jurisdictions," said Virginia Hardin, head of the Roanoke Valley Alliance for Children, a coalition that advocates for the interests of children and families.
"Part of that has to do with the poverty level. I don't want to oversimplify it, but that is one of the issues that seems to stick out like a sore thumb for Roanoke and not so much for other localities."
Hardin's organization highlighted portions of the report at a news briefing Thursday. The entire report was unveiled Wednesday in Richmond.
In the Roanoke and New River valleys as a whole, fewer children are living in poverty than statewide. Fewer are arrested for violent crimes. More are promoted in school. More are continuing on to some form of higher education after high school.
The region as a whole had slightly lower numbers of single-parent families, compared with the entire state.
"That was kind of a confounding trend because there were more births to unmarried teens," Gholston said.
Other area localities' teen birth rates hovered near the state's. Salem's rate was 37.7; Franklin County's was 34.4.
The region also had a slightly higher infant mortality rate - the rate of infant deaths per 1,000 live births - than statewide. Franklin County's rate was 12; Roanoke County, 10; Salem, 11.
Statewide, the rate was nine, which ranked Virginia No.41 among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The No.1 state, Maine, had an infant mortality rate of 5.6.
"This is a real crucial area for Virginia," Gholston said. "We've got a lot of work to do in that area to get children off to a healthy start."
Virginia has been included in national Kids Count reports for seven years, but the report released this week is the first with specific data on children in Virginia.
The report used 160 different measurements - from the number of admissions to juvenile correctional centers to the number of incidents of students possessing tobacco on school property.
The report provides a "snapshot in time" of the state's children, Gholston said.
"It's difficult to draw any concrete conclusions," she said. "Our goal was to focus on exactly what the status of Virginia's children is right now."
The data establishes a base line for measuring trends over the next few years, Gholston said. The report is being distributed to state legislators with the hope of helping them in "thoughtful decision-making," she said.
"Anecdotal information is what tends to foster many decisions," she said. The report "puts the data right in their hands."
Hardin said the report can be used best as a means of addressing problems as a community rather than by individual locality.
"I hope this can help us get some better understanding of how complex some of these issues are so we can have a community that starts addressing long-term these kinds of issues and just not these brush-fire points of view," she said. "We're a whole community here."
To inquire about getting a copy of "Kids Count in Virginia," write Action Alliance for Virginia's Children and Youth, 422 E. Franklin St., Third Floor, Richmond 23219, or call (804) 649-0184.
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: Chart by staff: A statistical report on the conditionby CNBof virginia's children.