More Kansas kids in poverty

Data recently reported by Kansas Action for Children raises concerns about the number of children living at or just above the poverty level in the state.

Kids Count is an annual report from data collected by the Kansas Health Institute for Kansas Action for Children.

The report indicates almost 40 percent of Kansas children live below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.

The number of children living in lower-class and lower-middle-class homes increased slowly between 2004 and 2008.

However, authors of the report noted the data is dated and may not fully reflect the impact of the recession on household incomes.

“Its no secret that Kansas families are feeling the pinch of the economy,” said Gary Brunk, president of Kansas Action for Children. “Despite the fact that children are the most vulnerable to economic insecurity, they are also a critical part of the solution. The data tells us that investing in Kansas children is essential to long-term job growth and our economic stability.”

Harvey County kids

Harvey County fared better than the state as a whole or its peer semi-urban counties for children in poverty.

Data from 2007 indicated 11.6 percent of Harvey County children lived below poverty compared to 14.89 percent of children in peer counties and 14.67 percent in Kansas as of the reports’ most current data gathered in 2007.

The report indicated semi-urban counties like Harvey County are the second lowest among the subgroups in the report in terms of poverty.

Harvey County showed a slight drop of -.14 percent in the child-poverty rate. While peer counties and the state saw about a quarter percent increase.

Kids Count is supported locally through Communities in Schools of Harvey County.

Executive director Susan Lamb said her agency was seeing more families facing difficult times during the recession.

“In our conversations, when we meet monthly with other agencies, demand for services in all areas is up,” Lamb said. “They are seeing more people with financial needs and more families in crisis and more women in shelters.”

Helping families help themselves

The Community in Schools program tries to address the issue of child poverty by connecting families with resources in the community.

Lamb said giving people chances to access opportunities to master basic skills can help move them out of poverty.

“We try to offer basic skills they don’t have,” she said. “Some people may have financial challenges because they do not have access to good money-management skills or have problems with their children because they do not have basic parenting skills.”

Director of Peace Connections Myrna Krehbiel has worked with the Circles Initiative in Harvey County, which is a movement to use mentoring to help families climb out of poverty.

She said poverty can be very detrimental to developing children.

“I think the chaos in a family can be a huge barrier to learning in schools,” she said.

She said programs that open relationships with children living in this chaos, such as Big Brothers Big Sisters and Head Start, can help children living in poverty.

Early intervention

Chelie Nelson, assistant director for special education for Newton, said the county has several programs to assist families of young at-risk children.

“Poverty can be a risk factor for later education issues,” she said.

Harvey County does not have Early Head Start, but it does have the Parents as Teachers Program for families with children ages birth to 3.

The program is open to families of all incomes.

Kids Count data indicates Harvey County has more Head Start spots than its peer counties and the state.

The county has an additional program for at-risk 4-year-olds.

Nelson said there are more children in need than can be served in the programs that operate at Newton’s Cooper Early Education Center. Six new classrooms are being added to the building to allow for expansion. The building expansion is scheduled to be completed in August.

The Kids Count data indicated Harvey County children performed well in reading proficiency at the fifth-grade level — 87.16 percent in Harvey County compared to 87.83 percent among peers and 84.24 percent in the state. The figures were up more than 3 percent for all three groups.

The county’s high school graduation rate is higher than its peers and the state at 90.27 percent compared to 89.51 percent for peers and 89.44 percent for the state.

The Hesston, Halstead and Newton school districts all made adequate yearly progress for 2008.

Jan Neufeld, Newton director of curriculum, said the district was absolutely pleased with its students’ performance on standardized tests.

“It is very exciting, We also received 51 Standard of Excellence Awards,” she said.

Health factors

Other key areas of the report included:

• Prenatal care — The data indicated 82.21 percent of women in Harvey County received prenatal adequate prenatal care compared to 77.39 percent in the state.

• Low birth weight babies — The data indicated 5.64 percent of Harvey County babies weighed less than 5.5 pounds compared to 7.11 percent in the state.

• Harvey County had no teens die in 2007 compared to 47.1 per 100,000 children in the state and 45 per 100,000 in peer counties.

• Tobacco use — The report indicated 12.99 percent of Harvey County students surveyed said they had used cigarettes or smokeless tobacco in the last 30 days compared to 13.02 percent in the state.

• Youth binge drinking — The report indicated 13.4 percent of Harvey County youth surveyed reported having five consecutive drinks on at least one occasion in the last two weeks compared to 15.23 percent in the state.

• Mental health — The data indicated less than one child per 1,000 children in Harvey County had to be hospitalized for mental health compared to 2.73 in the state.