This week our Foundation released data from the 2010 California Parent Survey, a new study that provides a wealth of current data on how California parents say their children are faring across a broad spectrum of physical and emotional health issues. While many of the overall results are positive, the findings highlight serious issues that affect significant percentages of the state’s children and demand our attention. For example:

• Family Income: About 2.6 million California children live in households where the parents report that their income is not adequate to meet basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter.
• Child Care: Approximately 16 percent of children do not have access to affordable child care options, according to their parents.
• Parental Depression: 26 percent of children live with parents who say they needed help with depression since becoming a parent. Research shows that children with depressed parents are at a higher risk of substance abuse, depression and aggression.
• Special Health Care Needs: About one-third of children with special health care needs are in very poor, poor, or fair overall emotional health, compared to 7 percent of other children, according to the survey.
• Neighborhood Safety: 20 percent of children with household incomes below $25,000 have parents who consider them unsafe in their neighborhood or surroundings.

The California Parent Survey queried 1,685 parents across income and racial/ethnic groups about their child’s physical, emotional and behavioral health, school-related issues, family activities, and societal influences. The study was conducted by Berkeley Policy Associates and the Henne Group in spring 2010, in English, Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese or Vietnamese, depending on the respondents’ preference. The study includes a representative sample of children in California.

Full survey results can be viewed at www.kidsdata.org/parentsurvey

Posted by kidsdata.org

Happiness and health. When it comes down to it, that’s perhaps all that most parents want for our children. It’s a simple enough goal. But we’re passionate in our efforts to guide – in some cases steer – our kids down a path leading there. Along the way, we’re bombarded with advice about how to be the perfect parent – from fellow parents, the media, parenting “experts”, teachers, our own parents, and, of course, our kids, who usually have no shortage of opinions on what we should do. And we’re often not quite sure that we’re making the right decisions.

So it’s heartening to see that responses from the 2010 California Parent Survey indicate that parents, by and large, seem to be doing fairly well by their kids. We talk with teachers about our children’s academic progress (91%) and volunteer at school (58% of kids have parents who volunteered in the last six months). We make sure our kids have health insurance (94%) and visit the doctor at least annually (79%). We try to have family dinners together at least five times a week (parents say this happens for 76% of children) and read with our kids (about two-thirds of parents of 0-5 year-olds read at least 5-6 times a week with their families, parents say).

Some of us accomplish all of this under heavy burdens that go well beyond the simple yet commendable accomplishment of just getting our kids dressed in the morning and off to school on time. Parents of about a quarter of California children (26%) say they’ve needed help with depression since becoming a parent, and the same percentage of parents say their income is not sufficient to meet their children’s essential needs – food, clothing, and shelter.

Certainly, there are areas for improvement. According to the survey, not all of us talk with our kids about sexual activity (these conversations have occurred for just 43%) or alcohol consumption (64%). Parents also indicate that roughly 15% of children live in households with at least one person who smokes, and about one in ten youth ages 14-17 may be suffering from depression (11 percent).

But as California parents strive to do their best, it’s important, too, that we remember a central message from this report: “On the whole, the survey’s findings are encouraging, with the majority of California’s children experiencing positive health and well-being within nurturing family environments.”

Posted by Andy Krackov

Accuracy means everything to us at kidsdata.org, so we want to draw your attention to a correction in one indicator. We offer the 2008 Self-Sufficiency Standard for the three most common types of families with children. The Self-Sufficiency Standard measures how much income is needed for a family of a certain composition living in a particular county to adequately meet its minimal basic needs, and takes into account the costs of housing, child care, health care, transportation, food, and other necessary expenses.

The annual figures are per family, rather than per adult, and this revision to the data has been posted on the live site. Many thanks to a meticulous kidsdata user from Food Share in Ventura County for contacting us with a question about this.

We take feedback from our users very seriously. If you have a question, suggestion, or comment about kidsdata.org, please use our feedback form, post it on our Data Questions page or as a comment here, or e-mail us at [email protected].

Posted by Sarah Marxer

During this holiday season, data just added to kidsdata.org remind us that many California children and families struggle to make ends meet. Poverty data for 2009 indicate that one in five children in California lives in a family with household income below the federal poverty level of $21,756 for a family of four.

Overall, the percentage of children in poverty in the state had declined from 2003 to 2007, but rose in 2008 — and again in 2009. Children of certain ethnicities/races are more apt to experience poverty than others; in 2009, about 30% of African American, Native American, and Latino children lived in poverty, compared to about 10% of Asian American and Caucasian children.

The highest rates of poverty in 2009 occurred in Tulare, Kern, and Fresno counties, all of which are in the Central Valley. Nearly one in three children in these counties lives in a family earning below the federal poverty line.

Other poverty related indicators on kidsdata.org include:

• Median Family Income
• Enrollment in the Free/Reduced Cost School Meal Program
• Homeless Public School Students
• See all poverty data>>

Posted by Jordan Handcox

The December issue of the kidsdata news roundup now is available – you can read it here.

A few highlights:

Demographic Trends

Latino Students Now a Majority in California Schools
(SF Chronicle, 11/13/10, by Kane)

Depression

Depression Returns in About Half of Treated Teens, Study Finds
(Time, 11/1/10, by Park)

Poverty

Report: Even Short Term Poverty Can Have Lasting Health Implications for Children
(CNN, 11/15/10, by Henry)

Special Needs

Families Fight to Care for Disabled Children at Home
(NPR, 11/8/10, by Shapiro)

Kids Make Up Largest Group with Traumatic Brain Injuries, CDC Says
(LA Times, 11/8/10, by Cohn)

Weight

Report: 84% of Parents Fed Their Kid Fast Food in Past Week
(WSJ, 11/8/10, by Hobson)

Study: Obese Teens Likely to Become Severely Obese Adults
(HealthDay News, 11/10/10, by Gordon)

Posted by Jordan Handcox

Approximately one in seven children in California has a special health care need — that’s 1.4 million children. Yet our state ranks last in the nation on a minimum quality of care index that assesses adequacy of insurance, provision of basic preventive care, and meeting minimal criteria for care that is ongoing, comprehensive, coordinated, and family-centered.

This striking finding comes from a just-released study, Children with Special Health Care Needs: A Profile of Key Issues in California, commissioned by our Foundation and prepared by Dr. Christina Bethell and her colleagues at the Child and Adolescent Health Measurement Initiative (CAHMI).

The researchers also found that California ranks at or near the bottom nationally on numerous other measures, including transition to adult health care, stress among parents, and receipt of needed mental health services.

Such troubling findings will come as no surprise to California families who are caring for a child with special needs, or to the thousands of individuals throughout the state who work with, and on behalf of, these children and their families. The roadblocks that prevent development of a high-quality system of care are longstanding, complex, and difficult to overcome.

Here at the Foundation, we believe these findings signal that the time has come to join forces in a new way to bring about broad and lasting change. For the past two years we have been focusing our efforts on improving California’s system of care. We have convened experts — both providers and consumers — to develop a model for a higher quality care system.

Now, we are launching the California Collaborative for Children with Special Health Care Needs to create a shared agenda and to advocate for changes that bring the system closer to this model.

A key goal of this ongoing, statewide Collaborative will be to look beyond specific organizational issues and speak with one voice to decision-makers about the need for a more effective and efficient system for all children with special needs. The Collaborative will not replicate the many valuable efforts under way throughout the state, but will offer a unique opportunity for a cross-system partnership that can assemble the critical mass necessary to bring about significant change.

Collaborative members will include patients, families and caregivers, providers, insurers, disease-specific advocacy organizations, educators, researchers, and public and private agencies. Members will share information and will address issues that matter to all of these constituencies, such as adequacy of insurance, better access to medical specialists, education primary care providers on special needs, ethnic and income disparities; enhancing support for families, and smoothing the transition to adult health care.

The Foundation is committed to working with others on a long-term basis to bring these issues to public attention and to achieve results. We are committing staff and resources. I hope you will sign up now to receive information about the Collaborative as it develops.



Posted by David Alexander, MD