Roy Miller President & Founder The Children's Campaign
Rather, I’ll spend my allotted minutes to surface the core barriers standing in the way of correcting the sad state of Florida’s children.
The current political climate presents many dangers for children. Our government is being hoisted up as the enemy of economic growth and vitality. But government, good government, is most often a child’s only and best protector, friend and guiding light. Philanthropy can’t make up the difference when government cuts back support.
There’s a new buzz in Tallahassee about community service being the way to reverse Florida’s low rankings in the health and well-being of children. Volunteerism, mentoring, and community service, however worthy, will not birth a healthy baby, rescue significant numbers of children from foster care, raise the standards of early education and pre-k, shorten the growing waiting lists for before and after-school care, or close abusive institutions and programs warehousing troubled youth, especially girls whose tragic pathways into the criminal justice system are riddled with sexual and other mental and physical abuse not yet surfaced and treated.
To significantly change those indicators and outcomes requires financial investment. Current political leaders refer to Florida as a poor state with limited resources. In fact, Florida is a state with abundant resources.
Advocacy to me instills the need and desire to bring issues forth that are designed to truly solve systemic and institutional problems, not nibble around the edges.
Increasing numbers of children in this state and country are sliding downhill instead of climbing in the right direction because wealth is being concentrated into the hands of fewer families. According to the nationally respected Economic Policy Institute, U.S. households at the bottom fifth of the income scale grew inflation-adjusted income on average of just $200 between 1979 and 2005. During this same 26 years, households at the top 0.1 percent of the income scale grew their wealth by nearly $6 million.
We won’t solve the growing problems of child poverty and the declining middle class unless, as advocates, we talk openly and candidly about that reality.
The expressed battle taking place in the state’s capitol is about the deficit reduction and supply-side ideology – cut government support of programs and services and get government off the backs of business and people so they in turn can spur economic development, jobs, and support of charitable causes. While there are sterling examples of Floridians with new-found wealth who invest generously in new industry and the state’s philanthropic community, there are more who won’t or don’t. It’s the rebirth of trickle down economics which we know from past experience doesn’t work.
I frame it differently. The battle taking place is defining who controls the resources and what is a fair share to pay to support the needs of the state?
In Florida and across the country, between 2002 and 2007, the bottom ninety-nine percent of incomes grew 1.3 per cent a year in real terms—while the incomes of the top one percent grew ten per cent a year. In the same time period, the top one percent has seen its share of national income double.
What are the implications for children?
On February 2, an article on the Huffington Post featured the latest study by the Foundation for Child Development. The Foundation reported that middle class families, whose income gap with the wealthy has widened by 50% since 1985, are relying more and more on government provided health and education programs. This trend was evident before the recession began in 2007.
Donald Hernandez, senior adviser to the Foundation for Child Development and author of the report, said his findings show that middle class is clearly not what it used to be.
“It makes me ask the question, ‘What is the middle class?’” he told HuffPost. “We used to think of it as having the capacity to pay for a lot of basic needs and services, and that’s less and less the case from the point of view of children and the increasing need they have to depend on government programs to get basic early education and health care.”
As the Huff Post continued, “… the welfare of middle-class children has also been declining over the past quarter-century in more areas than income and basic needs, according to the FCD study. One in ten middle-class children are not covered by health insurance, and about half of young children in the middle class are not enrolled in pre-K programs.
If it’s getting bad for the middle class, think how bad it must be for the families lower down the income line.
According to another respected national think tank, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, many governors are proposing annual budgets the Center labels as “unnecessarily damaging.” Policymakers are relying “entirely on program cuts rather than using every tool available, like tapping reserve funds and bolstering revenues,” the Center states.
What has happened to advocacy in Florida is that too many people are developing their strategies based on their perceptions – grounded or not – what “gubernatorial or legislative leadership will and won’t do” rather than spending the time and limited dollars flowing into advocacy to clearly and explicitly state what needs to be done to solve the real problems.
Florida must talk candidly about revenue reform. No amount of YouTube or public service ads or community service days will reverse the burgeoning health disparities and other negative trends.
According to the Kaiser Family Foundation State Facts:
- 15% of Medicare enrollees are under 100% of the FPL (2008-09);
- 54% of Medicare enrollees are under 200% of the FPL
- 21% of Floridians are uninsured
- 12.8 % of adults have a disability
- Over 1.1 million (2005) adults ages 18+ have been diagnosed with diabetes (7% of united states total)
According to the Trust for America’s Health:
– Florida ranks 2nd in most estimated cases of Alzheimer’s, 65+ (2010) (450,000)
- Florida ranks 3rd worst in nursing shortage estimates (2010)
- 25.1% of adults are obese (2007-09)
-Other:
-Florida spends $35.96 per capita for mental health treatment, ranking 48th of all 50 states. Only Arkansas and New Mexico spend less on mental health care.
Source: Treatment, Not Jail: Investing in Community Solutions to Florida’s Human Services Crisis, Florida Partners in Crisis, 2007
You’re may be wondering why Roy Miller, a child advocate through and through mentioned nurses, adult disabilities and Alzheimers. I’m a people advocate too. I was responsible for the care of my aging parents and I buried them at Arlington National Cemetery. I have real life experience beyond child welfare.
Besides, our children grow up to be these adults.
We have to push Florida to engage in an honest conversation about revenue and avoid the pitfall of the zero sum game: defined as for children to win, everyone else has to lose. Children can’t win if it means denying in-home services to the aging or kicking veterans out of their state sponsored group homes. The solution isn’t as simple as give children a bigger slice of the budget pie. This will result in a nuclear style arms race where constituencies from education to the environment to health care to the arts ramp up to compete with one another instead of focusing attention on the real problem whether we believe “leadership” is ready to hear it or not. No one will win unless we work together and surely most will lose if we don’t.
To me, that’s what great advocacy is all about.
I also encourage philanthropies to fund advocacy groups to do some of the work traditionally undertaken by government. This is what was done in Florida by the Jessie Ball duPont Fund (Sherry Magill) and Eckerd Family Foundation (Joe Clark) when supporting the call by The Children’s Campaign for a Juvenile Justice Blueprint Commission. Research on services to girls was provided by the Florida Bar Foundation (Jane Curran). DJJ and its then Secretary realized that with downsizing it needed the help of outside advocacy assistance. Several strong reforms have been passed as a result of the Blueprint and more are coming. These are measurable results when public policy is connected through advocacy to programs and services.
With the support of a small planning grant received from the South Florida Health Foundation (Steve Marcus and Peter Wood) and dollars carved from a membership grant from Allegany Franciscan Ministries (Eileen Boyle, Miguel Milanes and Sheri Wright-Jones), The Children’s Campaign has been looking at the benefits of a Children’s Health Blueprint process modeled after the juvenile justice initiative. We have taken the first step in calling for its creation in our legislative platform. While the health care debate in Tallahassee is chaotic, this is a good time to build a rational, thoughtful path so by time the dust settles a consensus document is already under development on pathways to take to improve child health in Florida.
We also must be specific about places to find revenues. I have a list but will wait for the Q&A to make some recommendations if asked.
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