COUNTY 16TH IN CHILDREN'S WELL-BEING

Cape Girardeau County is among the best in the state in terms of children's well-being, while several other Southeast Missouri counties remain among the worst, according to the Kids Count 2000 report released this week.

The report, prepared by the St. Louis-based advocacy groups Citizens for Missouri's Children and the Children's Trust Fund, annually documents the status of children across the state by examining factors that affect the quality of life and safety of children. Cape Girardeau County was ranked 16th.

And while Cape Girardeau's rank has been within the top 25 of Missouri's 114 counties for the past five years, Perry and Bollinger counties showed sizable drops in rank, Mississippi and Pemiscot counties remained near the bottom, and Scott and Dunklin counties improved slightly.

Karen Sides of Cape Girardeau said she could understand why the county fared so well in the rankings.

Sides, who has a daughter in her teens and works as a classroom aide at Jefferson Elementary School, said access has greatly improved to many services in the community that help families deal with financial, social, developmental and other issues affecting youth.

Even so, there's still room for improvement, she said.

"We have services for the kids, but it's like, you know what the problem is, but are you going to see them all the way through," said Sides. "We need to do a better job explaining the processes of things to parents so they can understand what's being done to help."

Cape Girardeau schools Superintendent Dr. Dan Steska said the Kids Count report is a valuable resource for school officials and social service agencies, who can use the data for writing grants and developing new programs. Steska said he also uses the report to determine trends or potential problems in his school district.

"It gives us one more piece of information to give us a broad prospective, either to make us question the data they have or to make us validate it," he said.

Determining ranks

Poverty is the biggest factor in determining the well-being of children, which explains why several Southeast Missouri counties -- which includes the poverty-stricken Bootheel area -- annually are among the worst in the rankings.

"They are distressingly consistent counties," said Ruth Ehresman, a spokesperson for the Citizens for Missouri's Children. "There has been progress. It's just that in areas where there is concentrated poverty, you have a host of bad outcomes, and you don't change concentrated poverty overnight."

Rankings are determined by considering births to teen-age mothers, births to high school drop outs, low birthweight infants, out-of-home placements, high school drop out rates and participation in the federal Free and Reduced Lunch program by county.

Other factors, such as infant deaths and child abuse and neglect incidents, are studied but not considered in the rankings.

For each factor, county data are compared against previous rankings and against other counties for the same year, and a rank is determined. A composite rank is then assigned.

Ehresman cautioned people from taking the rankings too literally. Southeast Missouri counties have lower populations than other areas of the state, which can sometimes distort changes in data.

"I always hope people take the rankings a little with a grain of salt," said Ehresman. "If every county made improvements in one of the factors, you could do better but still have a low ranking because you didn't do as well as other counties."

Problems in area counties

Perry and Bollinger counties had uncharacteristic drops in the rankings this year. Perry County, which in 1999 ranked sixth in the state, fell to 44th, while Bollinger County dropped from 87th to 108th.

Bollinger County's low rank was attributed largely to increases in high school dropouts and student poverty rates. The county also showed significant increases in infant mortality, child abuse and neglect cases and violent deaths for youth ages 15 to 19.

Carolyn Buckner, an employment consultant for the East Missouri Action Agency in Marble Hill, said a lack of transportation, employment opportunities and role models leave youth with few prospects.

Although the problems have long existed in the community, Buckner said the county's best and brightest youth are more apt to leave the county in search of jobs and careers now than they were previously. Those who stay typically find work in neighboring counties.

"Right now, with things closing early there's just not much here for the kids," she said. "I have grandkids here, and I would like to see improvements made in the county because I want them to have an education and good chances at life."

Buckner, who runs a youth employment program in the county, said her agency and others are working with school officials to develop programs to help youth develop and reach goals. They hope to help more youth stay in school and set career goals, but another aim is to encourage them to settle in the county and serve as role models for other young people.

In Perry County, extreme increases in child abuse and neglect cases and other factors were considered disheartening to people like Lisa Barnes, a children's advocate at the Perry County Women's Crisis Center.

In 1995, Perry County had an abuse and neglect reporting rate of 18 children per 1,000. That number skyrocketed in the county last year to 101 per 1,000. Barnes said the increase has followed improved efforts to educate residents about indicators of abuse and improved reporting methods.

"I hope people are becoming a little more aware, but obviously we still have a lot more bushes to shake," said Barnes.

Barnes has seen some improvement in the county, especially with the flourishing economy and opening of several new industries. But the progress has been slow, and more education is necessary to impact children's well-being, she said.

"Having more jobs helps, but it doesn't help with stress and other things," Barnes said. "I think that the report definitely provides me with the motivation to get some more information and to get out there more and work with the children."

Bootheel at the bottom

Martha Ellen Black, director of the Susanna Wesley Center in Mississippi County, said many of the residents in counties that make up the Bootheel will likely remain in the bottom of the rankings for several more years.

Many families have lived in impoverished conditions for generations, so time, education and resources will be needed before any substantial changes will be noted, she said.

"Basic poverty breeds very negative impacts, and for a long time we've thought that was OK and peers, community have accepted it," Black said. "Somehow, the community has to give the message this is not good and healthy."

The Rev. Carla Cooper of Kennett said she sees the effects of poverty every day as she travels to the church she pastors in Caruthersville.

"I have guys that sit on my church steps drinking and smoking marijuana. They feel more comfortable outside the church than inside," she said. "It's a shame when you walk the neighborhoods and see the living conditions you know no human should be living in. It's worse than the report indicates."

Cooper said there are "tons of resources" being sent into the region to improve the quality of life, but programming has been largely ineffective. It's possible the groups receiving grant funding to help the communities don't know how to work with residents, or that the residents don't know how to access the services available to them, she said.

Cooper doesn't anticipate any major gains in child welfare or the poverty rate in the Bootheel until faith communities and social service groups "step up" by taking a true assessment of the problems and making a realistic effort toward reform.

"Classicism is worst down here than racism. You have to change the psyche to empower people, then provide positive opportunities," she said.

A starting point

Ehresman said information in the report should be used as a starting point for local groups and state agencies to work from to improve the lives of Missouri's 1.4 million children. Although strong economy has meant improved unemployment rates and household incomes on the whole, there is a growing population of "working poor" families who experience problems because of their day-to-day stress.

For example, out-of-home placements for children due to abuse and neglect are on the rise in Missouri, and increases also have been noted in the number of children born to mothers without a high school diploma and the rate of children born at low birth weights.

Ehresman said she hopes state legislators and local organizations will use the data to improve programs for families statewide. Citizens for Missouri's Children will push legislators to use revenue from a national settlement with tobacco manufacturers -- $6.7 billion over the next 25 years -- to fund social programs.