I wonder what research is out there about the impact of a parent in prison when I child is young?

I know my university has a week long summer program through the psychology department specifically for kids with a parent in jail, so I do know people and groups are taking notice and trying to come alongside these kids and support them.

When teens get pregnant during high school, the odds become higher and higher that they drop out of high school and fall directly in the middle of the cycle, with limited job opportunities and a family already started.

This article at physorg.com explains how Vanessa Johnson from Northeastern University is studying the few students that are pregnant or who are already parents that are at the same time actually excelling in high school.  She is using their experience and success to help develope a program that will help other teens forge a path to finishing high school and hopefully getting a college degree.

A support network and continued interactions with their peers one of the key ingredients to life achievement is one of the initiatives Johnson is focusing on.  Teens learn not only social skills from each other, but they offer opportunities for other life learning and the encouragement that comes from a social network.

Stopping the spiral into the cycle of poverty by keeping at risk teens in the net of community, family, and continued support is something that seems so obvious, yet is not something I have consciously considered before.  This is such an important idea!  Johnson deserves more than a pat on the back for having the determination to not giving up on teens, just because they get pregnant earlier than most people.  I think there is a mindset that girls are lost causes, that they have already fallen into the cycle once they get pregnant.  Efforts to keep up with them and steer them back from their detour will be a great asset to girls who otherwise would be dropped by the wayside.   Hope is big, believing is big, and encouraging is big.  Making kids understand that one step off the typical path is not a downfall, that one “mistake” according the outside world isn’t necessarily a mistake, simply a different route to the same place.  Showing them that there is still hope and encouragement to be successful from friends and family, even after teen pregnancy.

I help out with the reading program at the Boys and Girls Club, and I began reading with this really cute, nice little boy.  He asked me to read Clifford with him, and I asked him what grade he was in.  He replied “third grade.”

The kid couldn’t even recognize “I.”  The stick, the one letter stick that is used when the narrator of a story is speaking about themselves.  I.  He can get “and” or “the”  now, after a couple of weeks of reading.  He for sure can read “Clifford” now, and  he is even pretty good with “was!”

We still struggle with words like “it” and “for.”

Third grade.

I asked my boss what in the world was going on, why couldn’t he read?  She told me he went to the local charter school.  I had no idea what that was,  and she explained it was kind of like a public private school.  Public, like no tuition and anyone could go, but private that it was limited space and they didn’t have to follow regulations like regular public schools.  Mainly, they only have to hire one qualified teachers.

“Who are the other people that teach?” I wondered, thinking it would be Teach for America people at least.  She replied that they just hire  people to teach.  In some quick online research on charter schools, this seems to be cited as a benefit.  No stuffy, educated teachers to  stifle the learning process.  Charter schools hire free thinking people to teach kids however they want, in new and different ways!

“That school is doing him NO favors,” my boss said.  And I can’t help but agree.  I don’t know exactly how charter schools work or why they would let students get to the third grade without being able to read (and it’s not just him, all the other kids from that school show signs of being behind), but I can certainly tell something is amiss.

Education = way out of poverty = NOT involving a charter school.

I found an article by Jonathan Alter with Newsweek about the Boys and Girls Clubs playing an integral role in  the prevention of high school dropouts and other life setbacks.  He uses great statistics, stories, and quotes making a solid case for Boys and Girls Clubs being on the leading edge of breaking the cycle of poverty.  Sweet!

Not so sweet: Just like everyother business/entity in America, the Boys and Girls Clubs are facing budget slashes.  Incluging mine, reported HERE in the Hamilton Journal news.

Also, THIS is something I would love to work into the day with the kids, even if it was just a one time special program.  Money management!  I think it’s a huge problem with these kids, and I see it every day when I work the snack bar.  They hand me two dollars for a bag of gushers and would have no qualms if they didn’t get change back.  They just don’t know.  They will slide their coins across the counter and ask with big (very cute) eyes what can I get with this?  I count it out loud to them every time, and point up to the price listings, hopefully after a while the coin amounts and prices with work their way into understanding.  When they get their change back, they joyfully try to squeeze another snack (Doritos? Cookies?) out of the remainder.  No consideration to save for tomorrow or keep money for themselves.  All of this has to be done quickly, because there are hoards of kids lined up behind them ready to cash in the coins for goodies.  I guess if their parents keep handing them money, and they have no idea of the value, they wouldn’t develop a concept of money and it’s worth.  Gah!

Thanks to the CRWRC Foundation

If they are given handouts, does this teach them that food is expected at no cost and will always be provided for no work?

It’s a delicate balance between feeding kids who are hungry and conditioning kids to believe that food will always just be handed to them with no work on their part.

These questions stem from a conversation with my boss about being torn about how to hand out the free snacks that go with with Summer Feeding Program lunches.  We started out the program by putting the snacks in the reading room and giving them out only after the kid read a book and took an accelerated reader quiz.  But of course not everyone wanted to read just to get a snack (what?!?  we have to do something to get this food??) so we didn’t give out enough snacks.  We ended up with a backlog so we changed strategies and just gave out snacks to anyone.

This was unsettling for my supervisor, because the free lunch was one (good) thing, but he wanted to be able to teach the kids something about EARNING food, and the economics of securing nourishment in the “real world.”

Is this important?  Do we need to make sure kids are always earning food instead of taking handouts?  How can we teach them that they have to work to get what they need without withholding needed food from hungry kids?

Second, and most important part of the job: picking up a perfectly balanced nutritional meal and serving it to the kids that come to the club.  Kids, that come from low-income families, might not get enough food at home, don’t have money to spend for lunch, that sort of thing.  Right?  Right??!?!!

The problem is, I’m doubting the need for this program in my area.  Not to forget that percentage of kids who are truly hungry and who truly need free food, they do exist and I am happy to feed them.  My doubts come from the kids who are already fed before they come, a meal at home.  From the kids who come in and examine the food, and decide they don’t like it or don’t want it.  And mostly from the kids who line up at the “Lounge” counter from 1-3, a solid two hours, to buy loads of hot Cheetos, Doritos, fruit roll-ups, pop, gushers, cookies, etc.  So they are hungry at home, don’t have money, need a government lunch program, yet they have enough money and room in their stomach to refuse free lunch and buy hot Cheetos?  They have no concept of nutrition, let alone money (they hand me a dollar for gushers and wouldn’t blink an eye if they didn’t get change).

What’s the deal?  More updates through the summer, see what I come up with

One speaker said that the leading cause of poverty is illiteracy, so it was important to focus on that aspect with the kids we would be working with.  That fact is a really big motivator for me, because one of my three jobs at the Boys and Girls Club is reading with kids and helping facilitate their accelerated reader program.  (which, incidentally, I remember using when I was in elementary school.  Ah, memories.)  I really love reading with the kids, even though they are obviously terribly slow and my patience is tested all the way through Dr. Suess (kinda trippy books now that I am reading them as an adult).  Every word I help them with, that they can sound out and learn, I am hopeful that it is one step closer to a future made easier by literacy.

But then I got to thinking: literacy?  really?  Is that the number one cause of poverty?  I have written about a lot of causes or presumed causes before, and I guess it’s whatever study or opinion you look at.  Drugs?  Self-destructive behavior?  This article thinks so, citing a study from NPR and a Kennedy School Poll.

How can the number one cause of poverty even be determined when the very definition of poverty can’t be decided on?

One could also argue, how important is literacy if one can only just hold a steady job, stay of drugs, etc. and just stay afloat?  I know my education major roommate sitting beside me here would kill me for questioning the importance of literacy, but what is the end goal?  Am I pretentiously suggesting that everyone should live at the same economic level or better than I do, and if they can’t rise out of the lower rungs of society it isn’t worth it?  Who am I to say that a life on a minimum wage job that doesn’t require reading isn’t an okay way to go through life?  But then again, what job doesn’t require an ounce of reading?

There are so many options and so many opinions as to who should take the responsibility.  Is is the families and the extended family of the people who aren’t making enough money to survive?  Is it up to the employers to offer more insurance, more pay, flexible hours?  Should more charities be created to step in, or is it the national or state governments job to provide aid and guidance?  When you look at government help, many people would balk at more financial aid coming from this sector because it isn’t donated money or obligated money, like from a charity or family member.  Government assistance is taxpayer money, and therefore that “assistance to the poor is…at the expense of someone else.”  Unwillingly perhaps sometimes, because there is still a prevailing sense that “individuals can do best for and by themselves” and are very cynical of government social assistance programs.

It doesn’t help that data is so different according to different situations and research parameters that findings could point in any which way as to what method is best.

The recent (as in, within the last 5 years) welfare reform policy tries to mix a couple of the factors.  The state provides assistance alongside an able bodied worker working to help out.  This is a good start, but how far should welfare reform go in order to provide assistance, while balancing economic costs and reducing a high potential for dependency on the programs?

Comparatively, the United States as a whole in comparison to Europe has reflected a much lower support for social programs.  In asking if the government should help provide everyone with a basic income, responders in the United States agreed with the statement 20%, and the Netherlands, Germany, and the United Kingdom agreed much more strongly from percentages from 48-59.  Our extreme individualistic culture definitely plays a part in our thoughts on social policy and aiding people who are stuck in a cycle of poverty.

My last personal thought expounding from another of Iceland’s ideas is that America is so big, we lack a sense of unity and obligation to help fellow American citizens.  We aren’t one nationality truly, there are immigrants who are stigmatized and get the blame for making up most of the lower-class, and we are geographically so spread out that it’s easy to see impoverished citizens as so far removed to not be our problem.  The poor are in Africa, the poor are in India, the poor are in urban inner-cities for country people and the poor are in the back hills of America for urban people.

If you haven’t noticed, the poor are in your backyard.  Some fit the stereotypes and some need to work harder, but some truly need assitance.  Some come from generations of poverty with little hope of escaping.  And most need that little boost from the government, who should protect and help it’s people.  America, as I see it, needs to stop being so focused on personal wealth and success and start having a heart of generosity.

First of all, be sure to check out the Clubhouse website I just finished.  Clubhouse is an organization that works along parents and families that live in lower-income neighborhoods in Oxford, partnering to be another role model for the kids and teach them about Christ.

Clubhouse is also teaching me a lot about the different cultures between how I grew up and the culture of the mobile home park community.  For example, my parents never cursed when I was younger and I would be in big trouble if certain words would ever leak out of my mouth.  From my upbringing, I think cursing is bad and if kids say a bad word they are asking for attention or doing a bad thing, so the volunteers usually try to discipline kids who speak that way. BUT two weeks ago we had our annual end of the year Clubhouse family picnic (which was so much fun!).  Parents were chatting in the pavilion, and I heard curse words scattered nonchalantly throughout their conversation.  This was a good reminder for me that the Clubhouse kids live in homes that use a different vocabulary than I do, so when a bad word is spoken they may not even think twice about it, and I shouldn’t be so hard on them.

There was also a father who gave the volunteers some fliers to the volunteers, advertising his services to fix up old computers from college students to give to “under priveldged families.”  It was a great idea, and we put the fliers up, but I wish I could have helped him design them!  There was a spelling error, it was black and gray basic type kind of off center and didn’t look quite like an opporutnity I would like to take if I just saw it posted somewhere.  If only he had more resources or more know-how to make a better advertisement and then hopefully a more successful initiative.