Bowling Green Daily News

June 13, 2008

KIDS COUNT Still Low in State

Kentucky Drops a Spot in Health, Welfare Ratings

By NATALIE JORDAN, The Daily News, njordan@bgdailynews.com/783-3243

Last year, an annual study that ranks children’s health and welfare in all 50 states showed Kentucky improving its rank from 42nd in the nation to 40th. The latest study, released Thursday, showed the state’s rank dropped to 41st, with the state continuing to rank in the bottom 10 in several of the study’s 10 categories.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation released national data for KIDS COUNT comparing Kentucky’s performance to other states - and finding the state ranking low in several categories.

Kentucky ranked 43th in its percentage of teens not in school, 36th for its teen death rate, 45th in percentage of parents without secure employment and 41st for children living in poverty.

The data reveals that Kentucky improved on four of the 10 measures of child well-being, but experienced six setbacks since 2000, including a growing trend of impoverished children and higher rates of children living with parents who have no regular full-time employment.

“Obviously, we’re seeing a downturn in the economy and that will have an impact,” said Tara Grieshop-Goodwin, director of Kentucky Youth Advocates. “Even if a family is working full time, it is hard to find a job with an income to support a family. It takes more than minimum wage to take care of a household.”

The federal poverty level for a family of four is $20,444.

The study also focused on the growing number of children entering the juvenile justice system. While Kentucky has a lower crime and arrest rate than the national average, there’s a trend in the state to treat juvenile offenders differently based on their race.

“So we are finding that when two youth go in with the same charge and the same history, they’re having different outcomes,” she said.

Minorities are less likely to get diversion sentences and more likely to be detained, she said.

To combat this, Grieshop-Goodwin said Kentucky Youth Advocates is putting together a commission to address the issue.

“We know that detention is non-effective for dealing with nonviolent offenses and it’s expensive,” she said. “If we want to truly address the adult (prison) population, we have to first address the young people being detained for nonviolent offenses.”

There were some bright spots for Kentucky, according to the report, such as the decline of girls ages 15 through 19 giving birth and the percentage of teens not attending school and not working. Teen dropout rates are improving as well - 9 percent of teens were high-school dropouts in 2006, compared to 10 percent in 2000.

Grieshop-Goodwin said the legislature has taken positive steps to address the teen death rate and child death rate through the graduated license law and stricter booster seat laws.

“Hopefully we will begin to show progress in those indicators,” Grieshop-Goodwin said.

With poverty, Grieshop-Goodwin said families need to seek better ways to keep the money they earn.

“Too many families use pay-day lenders and end up paying back more than they borrowed in fees,” she said. “What we know is that we need alternatives to financial services that won’t put more financial burden on families.”