Delayed action is child abuse

By Edward P. Kelley  |   Saturday, December 19, 2009  |  http://www.bostonherald.com  |  Op-Ed

At the turn of the century, President Theodore Roosevelt had the wisdom to convene the first White House Conference on Youth and Children, stressing the importance of family and home life and improving foster care. A national Children’s Bureau was created. Dismal foster homes were inspected, and foster children received more adequate education and medical care.

Conferences were held every 10 years and brought landmark changes for children - who so often are voiceless in the political process - improving health care for mothers and children, extending aid to special needs children and bettering child-labor standards. By 1970, the conferences faded out. Despite laws to hold them in 1980 and 1990, no action was taken.

Re-establishing the White House Conference on Children and Youth is long overdue. With two champions for children, Barack and Michelle Obama, living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., the time to set a 2011 conference in motion is now.

Massachusetts, once a national leader on juvenile justice and child welfare, should take the lead. And the planning process must begin. We need a White House Conference to get the nation talking about what ails our most vulnerable young people and their families.

We are at a critical juncture for challenged youth. In 2006, there were more than 3 million reports of child abuse and neglect nationwide. Each year, abuse and neglect cases cost the country more than $104 billion. In 2006, more than 800,000 children spent time in foster care. Annually, 51,000 children are adopted out of foster care, but 125,000 are left waiting for that golden moment that will likely never come - a disproportionate number of whom are Latino, African-American and Native American.

Two bills are pending in the House and Senate, urging President Obama to call a national conference. It would be a dialogue in many dialects, from varying vantage points, to address the challenges that our country’s neediest families and children face daily.

When these conferences were held earlier in the last century, there were results. A Children’s Charter was created in 1930 that set requirements for education, health, welfare and protection. The largest medical care program ever instituted by the U.S. at the time - Emergency, Maternity and Infant Care - launched in 1940. The Children’s Bureau was elevated in the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare by 1960. Ten years later, then-Sen. Walter Mondale (D-Minn.) chaired a new Senate subcommittee on Children and Youth, and President Richard Nixon followed up with a $300,000 request to carry out national mandates from the conference to the states.

A 2011 conference could bring together citizens, parents, youth workers, political leaders, foster families, judges, advocates and mental health workers from all facets of our diverse country to guide us into the next decade with solid reform.

Critical talking points would be: children’s physical and mental health, education, substance abuse, housing, juvenile justice, child welfare, work force issues, strategies to help families and methods to stop abuse.

The words of Robert F. Kennedy still ring true: “Justice, dignity, equality.” These are words which are often used loosely, with little appreciation for their meaning. Their meaning can be distilled into one goal: That every child in this country live as we would want our own children to live.

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