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.
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart