Pubdate: Wed, 10 Oct 2001 Source: Hendersonville Times-News (NC) Copyright: 2001 Hendersonville Newspaper Corporation Contact: http://www.hendersonvillenews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/793 MAKING SURE KIDS GET THE HELP THEY NEED Large numbers of Henderson County children need help that the community should be providing, but there are gaps in service some children are falling through. Good thing a group of civic-minded people are evaluating where those gaps are and developing a plan for filling them. Such a plan is necessary to assure that Henderson County is doing all it can to give children a chance to succeed in life. The Strategic Plan for Children was requested by the Henderson County commissioners earlier this year. A committee formed of members from The Children and Family Resource Center board, Juvenile Crime Prevention Council and the community is putting the plan together. The committee has done a good job of forming a picture of the problems facing the county: 1. One third of the county's children under 17 come from homes in need of public assistance. 2. Teen pregnancies in this county are increasing at a time when the national rate is falling. 3. Twenty-five percent of the county's middle and high school students served an out-of-school suspension during the 1999-2000 school year. 4. More young adolescents are being arrested for crimes, and the number of youths under 16 being arrested on drug charges is increasing. Obviously, children and teens are having behavioral and emotional problems that get them in trouble in school and with the law. If the problems continue into later life, these same people will have trouble holding down jobs. They will be more likely to have criminal records and be on welfare rolls. The Strategic Plan committee is looking at what resources the county is already making available to children and determining what gaps exist. One disturbing gap is the lack of money for the mental health services that committee members say children need. The major burden for raising children falls where it should, on the shoulders of the parents. Yet, while we insist that people wanting to drive have proper training, we expect people to instinctively know how to be parents. Some parents need help, and this community has tried to provide that help by establishing The Children and Family Resource Center. The center offers free parent education classes and special programs for new mothers, Hispanic families, pregnant adolescents and families with serious problems. The center also has a behavioral interventionist on staff to serve child care centers and homes. But more programs are needed if this county is going to keep children with problems from becoming drains on community resources when they are adults. Figuring what those programs should be is the next job for the Strategic Plan for Children committee. It is now incumbent on the committee to craft some realistic strategies that the rest of the community can get behind. - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart