Born Too Soon: The Global Action Report on Preterm Birth, released by the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), spells out how far the United States and the international community must go to birth healthy babies.  The lessons for Florida are significant.

The W.H.O. report estimates that 15-million babies, or one in ten, are born prematurely worldwide each year.  The leading cause of newborn deaths is prematurity (babies in the first 4 weeks of life), the second leading cause of death in children (after pneumonia).

In a story about the report, the New York Times pegs the percentage of preterm births in the United States at 12%, on par with developing countries such as Kenya and Thailand.  By contrast, Australia and Canada have preterm birth rates as low as 7%.

Pre-term deliveries in the United States have risen by about a third over the past three decades.  This troublesome outcome brings into serious question the commitment and level of resources aimed at maternal health.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the percentage of premature babies in Florida is well above the United States average.

Also above the national average is the number of low birth weight babies.  For 2010, the actual number is 18,719 as reported by The Children’s Campaign in its latest non-partisan publication, Journey to Great Beginnings, distributed recently to candidates running for state legislative and federal seats.  Overall, about 4,600 babies are born each week in Florida with 13.5% preterm and 8.6% low birth weight (less than 5.5 lbs.)

Florida was trending toward improved rates of low birth weight when state officials cut maternal health funding over three consecutive years.  The cut in 2011 ($5.4 Million) was especially impactful, with services reduced to 22,000 pregnant women.

This downward slide in funding was reversed somewhat in 2012 in response to an advocacy initiative shedding light on its impacts. A $3.2 million bump in the right direction was recommended by the legislature and signed into law by the governor. A sizeable portion of the restored dollars, however, are non-recurring; meaning, it was a one-year bailout requiring continued advocacy to nail down future support.

In addition to the hardships premature and low birth weight babies face in the form of life-long learning disabilities, chronic lung ailments, and vision and hearing difficulties, the cost to taxpayers is staggering. Linda Alexionok, Executive Director of The Children’s Campaign, prepared a projection and shared it with legislators during the conversation about Healthy Start funding levels. It showed if only 10% of pregnant women denied services due to the $5.4 million in funding cuts actually gave birth to a low birth weight baby, the same year cost to Florida taxpayers in Medicaid dollars expended could explode to more than $145-million!

Research shows a notable improvement in healthy birth outcomes when women receive prenatal care starting in their first trimester.  Research also shows that a woman’s health status prior to pregnancy is a significant preventive factor.

While the W.H.O. report offers no complete list of causes or understandings for the large number of premature births, it cites factors such as teenage pregnancy, obesity, smoking habits and high blood pressure.

Recommendations from the W.H.O. for lowering the number of premature births include “… family planning, increased empowerment of women, especially adolescents, plus improved quality of care before, between and during pregnancy, strategic investments and innovation and research.”

For more information, read:

Born Too Soon, a report by the World Health Organization;

U.S. Lags in Global Measure of Premature Births, New York Times;

Journey to Great Beginnings, a publication of The Children’s Campa

This breaking news was brought to you by:

Roy Miller                                                            Melissa West
President, Founder                                             Public Policy
The Children’s Campaign                                   The Children’s Campaign

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Every election year since 1992, The Children’s Campaign has sponsored the Candidate Connection,  providing the latest facts and analysis about Florida’s 4-million children. This non-partisan educational effort reports the facts without bias.

This year’s effort aimed at candidates is requiring a special database – listing more than 600 who have opened accounts to run for State House, State Senate, and Congressional seats.  It’s an unusually high number and continues to grow.

“Every ten years after the census and redistricting the number of candidates for state and federal office skyrocket,” said Roy Miller, president, The Children’s Campaign.  “It is our duty and honor to hand them the latest facts about the status of children in this state.”

Interns led by FSU graduate student Melissa West and undergraduate Leslie Stinson contacted every candidate.  The result is a better list than is generally available complete with email addresses, websites and phone numbers.

So far, candidates have been positive about the outreach.  “We’re expecting these publications to be well read,” said Linda Alexionok, Executive Director, who has overseen the technology aspects of the project.

Data collection was also undertaken by interns under the guidance of Amanda Ostrander, who wears many hats at the Children’s Campaign, including the primary contact on policy development.

This year’s first publication, Journey to Great Beginnings, covers a narrow window of time – known as the “early years” – that will largely determine a child’s future health, educational achievement and success.

Publications to follow will include Journey to Justice – addressing child welfare, abuse prevention, before and after school, juvenile justice and public safety; and, a review of the state budget through a racial equity lens.

Candidate Connection policy handbooks provide an overall roadmap to better choices and decisions.  They describe where the state has been, where it’s going, and what it needs to do to ensure that tax dollars result in the best possible outcomes.

Publications when available will post on www.iamforkids.org.  Look for the Candidate Connection “button” on the home page.

Editors Note:

Journey to Great Beginnings is provided by The Children’s Campaign with support from Voices for America’s Children, the nation’s largest child advocacy network, found on the web at www.voices.org.  Direct requests for more information to Roy Miller, president, rmiller@iamforkids.org, or Linda Alexionok, executive director, lalexionok@iamforkids.org, or by calling The Children’s Campaign at (850) 425-2600.

In its Sunday, March 25 editorial, the Ledger, headquartered in Lakeland, was prudent to counsel Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd to take seriously the alleged abuses of children in his jail.  The charges were brought forward in a federal class action lawsuit by the highly regarded Southern Poverty Law Center.  I, too, was disturbed by Judd’s comment that he was looking forward to putting the Southern Poverty Law Center “in their place.”

Likewise, the Ledger reminded child advocates that Sheriff Judd is a no nonsense leader.  I’ll go a step further.  I’m certainly aware of Judd’s support of children’s programs.  Worthwhile and highly effective services have benefited from his personal attention.  His support ranges from maternal health to child protective services to day treatment for failing girls and boys and shelters for in-crisis youth.  His promised blessing of diversion programs in Polk County was recognized by the PEACE faith coalition at a recent meeting.

It is because of Judd’s children’s agenda that I have been perplexed and dismayed by his recent decisions about detaining children in his jail and for defending the harsh treatment to which they are being subjected.  He appears to have dug in his heels on issues that, frankly, drag detention operations back in time; in this case, more than four decades, to an era that should have been abandoned long ago for the good of children.

The leap in the wrong direction started in 2011 when Senate Budget Chairman J.D. Alexander rammed SB 2112 through the legislature without a healthy public process.  This bill for the first time allows sheriffs and counties to assume control of detaining children without having to meet standards followed by every other detention center in the state.  The more stringent standards supported by advocates have been informed by years of best practice in Florida and across the country as well.

In a letter to the Ledger which appeared on Saturday, April 21, Bryant Grant, Chief of Detention for the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, took Senator Arthenia Joyner to task, who herself had written a critical statement about the Polk operation.  Grant said the Senator had her facts wrong and asserted his facility complies with “all Florida Model Jail Standards”.  Grant did not inform the public that the sheriff’s themselves wrote and adopted these standards for their own facilities and that they answer to no one but themselves.  That is certainly a part of the problem.

Polk County moved forward in spite of repeated pleas from the advocacy community and even a letter from Wansley Walters, Secretary of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, urging against the use of chemical agents – brutal pepper spray – and electric shock guns.  In safe and effective children’s detention centers elsewhere, these weapons aren’t even allowed on the premises.

Advocates predicted that the unbridled use of an adult correctional model would not work with children and would result in abuses.  The Southern Poverty Law Center has documented many disturbing charges in the first months of the Polk operation.

I was involved in the advocacy effort in the aftermath of Martin Lee Anderson’s death at the Panama City boot camp.  Actually, prior to that horrific event, advocates struggled to persuade the media and lawmakers to pay attention to the number of abuses in that program.  Eventually, correctional style boot camps were closed everywhere.

The opportunity exists in Polk County to alter course.  But Polk County does not seem inclined to do so unless forced by the courts or through a change in state law.  This is truly unfortunate.

As the author James Baldwin said, “For these are all our children. We will all profit by, or pay for, whatever they become.”

In addition, The Children’s Campaign is concerned about the lack of vocal, public opposition by the Department of Juvenile Justice to detaining children in adult correctional facilities.  The practice is a huge step backward.  DJJ continues to say detention reform is a top priority and has appealed to the philanthropic community.  Can a successful reform initiative take place without leading the charge to end the detention of children in county jails?

I think not.

This message was brought to you today by:

Roy W. Miller President The Children’s Campaign

The Advancement Project, New Media Advocacy Project and Power U Center for Social Change have released a compelling video raising awareness about juvenile arrests in Florida public schools.  The creators say School-to-Prison Pipeline was produced as a conversation starter.

One portrayal was a child in Miami-Dade who spent 3 weeks in detention for throwing a pencil at another student.  Another was charged with battery for throwing a lollipop. Talking back was disturbing the peace. And going to the bathroom was disruption of a school function. Seriously?

The video comes on the heels of a report released by the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice in November 2011 which touts Florida’s progress in turning around the overuse of harsh zero tolerance policies. DJJ shows that school arrests have decreased by 39% over the past seven years.

According to the DJJ “Delinquency in Florida’s Schools: A Seven-Year Study, the number of delinquency referrals for school-related offenses has also decreased, from 28,000 to 16,000, or 48%.

These numbers are impressive and better results are expected. DJJ Secretary Wansley Walters has pledged her personal commitment to prevent youth from entering the juvenile justice system as reflected in her cover letter to the report.  She points out that for thousands of children a school-based arrest is their first delinquency charge.

Yet some of the numbers behind the numbers are disturbing. David Utter, with the Southern Poverty Law Center, had this bad news for a Journey to Justice Roundtable hosted by The Children’s Campaign in December:  while overall referrals were going down, referrals for misdemeanors actually went up from 63% to 67%.

Further, overrepresentation of minority youth continues to plague zero tolerance enforcement.  While black youth comprise only 22% of the school population studied in Florida, black youth accounted for 47% of the referrals, a number that did not change over the seven year period.

Finally, 69%, or 11,300 children referred to DJJ last year had their cases diverted or dismissed. Another 4,100 children had their charges dismissed or not filed.

While diversion and dismissal are good, it begs the question why children are being subjected to life-long arrest records when different choices and actions could have been taken in the school setting?

Roy Miller, child advocate and watchdog, said,” Clearly, the 2009 law changes to the zero tolerance statute championed by the NAACP, The Children’s Campaign and other advocacy groups must be strengthened. Progress is being made, but for thousands and thousands of children each year who have their lives compromised, the change isn’t happening fast enough.”

Watch the Video

Read the DJJ Report

Southern Poverty Law Center Powerpoint

Feeding America first published the Map the Meal Gap project in early 2011, with the generous support of the Howard G. Buffett Foundation and The Nielsen Company, to learn more about the face of hunger at the local level. In August, 2011, with the support of the ConAgra Foods Foundation, child food insecurity data was added to the project. The maps below reflect 2009 and 2010 data, and will be updated every year with new data. Select a year and your state in our interactive map below and start learning more about the residents struggling with hunger in your community and the food banks that serve them.

Get more information here

By Carol Gentry
05/04/12 © Health News Florida

Over the past two years, Florida did such a good job of enrolling uninsured children in KidCare that the state could have qualified for as much as $200 million in federal bonuses – money that could have helped get more children into care.

But the state did not take the steps required to get the money. A spokesman for the Florida House said it appears the reason was the cost involved in making changes to certain agency rules, but was unable to offer specifics Friday morning. (This article will be updated with the state makes more information available).

Children’s advocates say half a million Florida children, about one in eight, still lack health coverage.

“It’s so frustrating,” said Jodi Ray, director of Florida Covering Kids and Families at the University of South Florida. “These kids need health services.”

Ray said the state now has 2 million children covered through Medicaid or Healthy Kids, a buy-in program for uninsured working families. (Collectively, the programs are sometimes called KidCare.)

She recently received a national award for her project, which recruits and trains volunteers to find and enroll uninsured children.

It’s surprisingly hard to find the children who qualify for assistance; families often don’t know the programs exist, let alone how to sign up. That’s why the Obama administration decided to offer states a financial incentive.

The bonuses, which have been awarded for 2010 and 2011, are supposed to run through 2013. However, an effort to end the bonuses has begun in the U.S. House of Representatives, which has a Republican majority. On Monday, the House Budget Committee plans to mark up a $115 billion package of health-care cuts that includes $400 million in bonus money for children’s enrollment, Politico reported.

Those who oppose the bonus program said it could lead to fraud, tempting states to get sloppy in checking whether families are really eligible for tax-supported programs. But children’s advocates are fuming.

“Quite simply, what could be more ‘American’ than to have all children with a real and caring relationship with a medical caregiver,” said Dave Lawrence, chair of The Children’s Movement of Florida. “A country that has spent more than $500 billion dollars over the past 10 years to bring democracy to Afghanistan surely could make sure that children have the basics that would give them a fair chance to succeed in school and in life. The very future of our children depends on such issues.”

The estimate of how much Florida has given up by not seeking bonuses comes from Tricia Brooks, senior fellow at Georgetown Center for Children and Families. Brooks said she calculated the 2010 bonus that Florida would have earned at between $95 million and $100 million.

While she did not repeat the calculations for 2011, Brooks said, Florida’s enrollment increases met the targets to qualify for a similar performance bonus.

To receive the bonus, a state must adopt at least five of eight measures that make it easier for eligible children to become and stay enrolled. Brooks said Florida meets two of those: It doesn’t require a face-to-face interview, and it has no asset test – in other words, it doesn’t look at whether children’s families own a house or car.

Brooks said Florida partially meets two other measures: Creating standard forms and verification processes for Medicaid and Healthy Kids, and maintaining information from one year to the next without requiring families to start over on enrollment.

A fifth measure Florida could easily meet, Brooks said, is to make its premium-assistance program conform to one authorized by Congress. Premium-assistance programs help pay for employer coverage.

To accomplish these things, however, would have required not only action by several state agencies, but also the Legislature – the same Legislature that has forbidden agencies to accept money if it comes from the Affordable Care Act. The bonus money comes from a different funding stream, the Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act.

(Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the source of the funds.)

To complicate things further, the Legislature will not meet again until March 2013, the last year the bonus program is supposed to operate.

Given the frustrations, child-advocacy groups are mobilizing under the banner of KidsWell Florida, part of a new national movement that wants to close gaps in public and private health insurance for children. The Florida groups will hold an organizing Webinar on May 30.

The groups involved include The Children’s Movement of Florida, Florida CHAIN, the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy, the Children’s Trust of Miami-Dade and the Florida Children’s Healthcare Coalition.

–Health News Florida is an independent online publication dedicated to journalism in the public interest. Editor Carol Gentry can be reached at 727-410-3266 or by e-mail.

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