Children And Youth

Advocates for Children and Youth released a study Wednesday that says that more than 40 percent of children sent to group homes would be better served by Multisystemic Therapy, an intense, family-based intervention program. The percentage is twice as much as the state sends to such therapy. The sample for the study included 35 children between the ages of 11 and 17, advocates said. After a review of court records, pre-disposition investigation reports, placement and treatment histories and other documents within the juvenile court files, the study found that 15 of the children were eligible for the therapy, advocates said.

How should you spend your pay for the last hour of the last day of the 20th century?The International Youth Foundation has a suggestion: Give the money to a charity for children.The foundation will launch an international campaign today in Baltimore called "Children's Hour," aimed at collecting $200 million worldwide from workers who want to give what they earn in the last moments of 1999.The campaign, which began last year in Britain as "Children's Promise," has garnered $100 million in pledges in that country alone.

A statewide children's advocacy group honored six area television stations yesterday for outstanding locally produced programs for children.The winners, chosen by Advocates for Children and Youth (ACY) in its second annual Kids' TV Campaign were:WBFF (Channel 45), for a special called "How I Spent my Summer Vacation."WJZ (Channel 13), for the long-running, regularly scheduled program "It's Academic."WMDT-TV (Channel 47, Salisbury) for the public service announcement "Kids Safety."WDCA (Channel 20, Bethesda)

THE INTERNATIONAL Youth Foundation, opening a headquarters and holding its annual board meeting here this week, is a welcome arrival that strengthens Baltimore as a center of nongovernment organizations providing aid to the world.The young international charity, a six-year-old start-up by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation of Battle Creek, Mich., promotes services for children and youth worldwide. It joins an array here including the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, a foremost improver of health; Catholic Relief Services, one of the largest non-government providers of food and emergency assistance; the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the largest maker of grants to services for children and youth in the United States, and the Weinberg Foundation with its emphasis on the poor and poor children.

RICK LITTLE of the International Youth Foundation, which has just moved its headquarters to Baltimore, likes to throw out some sobering statistics to help explain the foundation's mission.He begins with the stark demographic facts:By the end of the 1990s, some 1.5 billion children will have been born during this decade; 97 percent of those births are occurring in poor countries.By the year 2000, for the first time in modern history young people under the age of 20 will make up half the world's population.

An advocacy group has issued a report charging that state government has its priorities backward when it comes to juvenile justice, with far too few resources to prevent youth crime before it becomes serious.The report, released yesterday by Advocates for Children and Youth, also states that more Maryland youngsters are being charged as adults, but that many of them are not the repeat offenders politicians envisioned when they passed legislation in 1994 to crack down on young criminals.To avert a projected increase in juvenile crime statewide and around the country, officials must shift resources extensively to intervene in children's lives before they are in serious trouble, the report says.

Local government leaders announced yesterday that they want to form a new quasi-public agency to better coordinate and manage social services for children, youth and families in Howard County.In a pre-kindergarten room at Columbia's Running Brook Elementary School yesterday afternoon, county officials, including County Executive Charles Ecker, said they plan to form the Local Children's Board for Children and Youth Services.The board would more easily help children who have learning disabilities, behavior problems or other special needs get the attention they need, said Nancy Weber, executive director of county hospice services and chairwoman of the board's planning panel.

Remember the little children.That's what Howard County churches and child advocacy groups will do today through Sunday as they mark the statewide observance of the annual weekend known as the Children's Sabbath.The event is part of a yearlong Maryland campaign, co-sponsored by the Baltimore-based Advocates for Children and Youth, the Central Maryland Ecumenical Council and other groups, to highlight the problem of children in poverty.Several Howard congregations will devote Sunday services to children's issues.

In a study highly critical of Maryland's foster care program, a child advocacy group has found that social workers wait nearly two years before trying to match foster children with adoptive parents, while the children are bounced from one home to another.The 61-page report, to be released today by Advocates for Children and Youth, says social workers waste too much time hoping to reunite children with unfit birth parents instead of seeking stable homes for them.Children remain in foster care too long -- an average of 4 1/2 years -- before they finally are adopted, the report asserts.

The Columbia Foundation, an independent community foundation, is preparing to award $50,000 to not-for-profit groups with projects that support Howard County parents and strengthen their knowledge and skills.The foundation determined a need for the initiative aimed at parents after convening a countywide Children and Youth Conference in June 1994. The 250 participants discussed several issues affecting children and youth, but the need identified as the most important was providing skills and support to parents.

Advocates for Children and Youth released a study Wednesday that says that more than 40 percent of children sent to group homes would be better served by Multisystemic Therapy, an intense, family-based intervention program. The percentage is twice as much as the state sends to such therapy. The sample for the study included 35 children between the ages of 11 and 17, advocates said. After a review of court records, pre-disposition investigation reports, placement and treatment histories and other documents within the juvenile court files, the study found that 15 of the children were eligible for the therapy, advocates said.

HC DrugFree, a nonprofit organization that seeks to empower the Howard County community to raise drug-free children, will offer "Teen2Teen: Alcohol, Drugs and All in Between," a panel of young adults who will share their experiences with alcohol and other drugs, from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. March 18 at Hammond High School, 8800 Guilford Road. The panelists will describe their lives and how they recovered from addictions, and answer questions. Registration is not required. Information: 443-325-0040.

Group questions care for at-risk children Fewer abused and neglected children are being removed from their families, but a report released yesterday by a youth advocacy group questions whether the state agency that cares for those children is doing enough to ensure their safety. Studies have shown that abused and neglected children removed from their families suffer long-term difficulties, such as drug use and emotional problems, at higher rates than abused and neglected kids remaining with their families.

Dwayne Price had been arrested 11 times and had run away from state custody at least once. Yet at the age of 18, the state's juvenile justice system gave him one final chance at rehabilitation, sending him to Pennsylvania's Camp Adams, a youth lockup north of Allentown. Less than three weeks later, Price escaped. Pennsylvania authorities quickly caught, charged and convicted him as an adult. But because he had been waiting in jail for 145 days, they paroled him three days after he was sentenced, putting him back on the streets - likely years before he would have been if he hadn't escaped.

New ways to help youths in trouble The monitor's report highlighted in The Sun's article "Monitor faults conditions at state juvenile centers" (May 21) raises concerns that programming is lacking at the Victor Cullen Center, a new secure facility in Western Maryland. Advocates for Children and Youth released an analysis last week that amplifies the same concerns. The state has invested $20 million in reopening the Victor Cullen Center and is planning to spend hundreds of millions more to replicate that model in Baltimore and in Prince George's County.

Advocates for better foster care say they are worried that the state is not moving fast enough to find new foster families and move away from group homes, which critics say cost more and do not always meet neglected and abused children's needs. A status report released yesterday by Advocates for Children and Youth says that since June 2007, the state has gained 89 new families. The Department of Human Resources, which oversees foster care statewide, set a goal in November of signing up 1,000 new families by 2010.

Quality services cut delinquency As The Sun's article "Youths lost in juvenile system" (April 22) suggests, the state Department of Juvenile Services is beginning to address critical components of its broken system, including the monitoring of youths under its custody and the training and support its staff members need to do their jobs effectively. However, adequate monitoring and staff training alone will not have the desired outcomes if the young people on probation are not linked with quality community-based services.

Services help youths stay out of trouble As The Sun has reported, Farron Tates was returned repeatedly to the community after being held responsible for juvenile offenses, without effective support services being extended to him or to his troubled family ("A troubled life," March 13). He was then arrested for murder. This tragedy illustrates a pattern that Advocates for Children and Youth recently identified in a comprehensive review of children entering the juvenile justice system. Our study found that many youths are repeatedly arrested but provided little help until, after multiple arrests, they are placed in juvenile jails that turn many youths into career criminals.

WASHINGTON -- Maryland had the lowest percentage of children younger than 5 living in poverty of any of the United States in 2005, according to new estimates from the Census Bureau. The survey said 12.2 percent of children younger than 5 lived below the poverty line in Maryland, compared with a national average of 21.3 percent, according to a survey released by the Census Bureau's Small Area Income and Poverty Estimates program. Maryland also had the second-lowest overall poverty rate in the nation, as well as the second-highest median household income, according to the survey.

Blogs, it's been shown, can do many things: shame celebrities, hound politicians, break news, challenge the mainstream media. But can a blog help save a city? George Soros' Open Society Institute in Baltimore hopes so. The institute, a private grant-making foundation founded by the billionaire financier and philanthropist Soros to promote economic and social reforms, this month launched a blog called audaciousideas.org to further debate about what ails Baltimore. Jane Sundius, the group's director of education and youth development, drew about a dozen comments to her post last week calling on community members to watch their kids as they pass to and from school each day, to both encourage them and ensure their safety.