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Prominent entertainers, media, foundations, corporations, and child development experts have established an unprecedented public awareness and engagement campaign to focus on new and compelling evidence about the importance of the first three years of life. Titled "I Am Your Child," the campaign is designed to promote family involvement in young children's healthy development and school readiness, to mobilize communities to act on behalf of young children and their families, and to build the capacity of early childhood organizations to help families nurture their children. The campaign also will create an enduring collection of educational resources for parents, early childhood practitioners, and policymakers.
The campaign will highlight an hour-long ABC prime time special called "I Am Your Child," produced by Rob Reiner, Michele Singer Reiner, and their production team. It is scheduled to air during the week of April 21, 1997. It will feature music, comedy, and a documentary created by New Screen Concepts about a community that has mobilized on behalf of young children and their families. The program will be hosted by Tom Hanks, and will feature Robin Williams, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Whitney Houston, Walter Cronkite, Billy Crystal, Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, and other stars who are donating their time and talents. Good Morning America will feature the campaign continuously during the week of the prime time special, as will many local ABC affiliates. Newsweek will publish a special edition to coincide with the show's airing. Two broadcast public service announcements will be produced for television, radio, and print media by The Advertising Council.
This effort builds on research evidence presented in Starting Points, the seminal 1994 report by the Carnegie Corporation of New York that documents the substantial body of literature on young children's emotional, social, physical, intellectual, and brain development. It concludes that "how children function from the preschool years all the way through adolescence, and even adulthood, hinges in large part on their experiences before the age of three."
The report points out that our nation has inadvertently neglected these crucial years and that this neglect has led to a variety of troubling conditions that should be improved. Nationwide, many families with very young children do not have health insurance, child poverty rates are alarming, child abuse rates are high, and a substantial number of infants and toddlers are in potentially harmful child care situations. Families of all income levels are under stress. Parents worry about the amount of time they can spend with their families and about the safety and future prospects of their children.
Campaign founders represent an unusual collaboration that includes entertainment talent, spearheaded by Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner, and by Ellen Gilbert from International Creative Management (ICM) and a broad range of experts from the early childhood field--including child development, early childhood care and education, parent education and family support, and children's health, coordinated by Ellen Galinsky and Nina Sazer O'Donnell of the Families and Work Institute. The campaign is supported by over a dozen foundations including the AT&T; Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the Teresa and H. John Heinz III Family Foundation.
For information on how to get involved at the state or community level contact the Families and Work Institute: Ellen Galinsky, Project Director (212) 465-2044; Nina Sazer O'Donnell, Project Manager (919) 477-7137; and Abby Farber, Project Coordinator (212) 465-2044.
The Administration on Children, Youth and Families, Department of Health and Human Services, in collaboration with Columbia University and the Society for Research in Child Development, announces Head Start's Fourth National Research Conference, "A Research Agenda on Children and Families in an Era of Rapid Change," to be held July 9-12, 1998 in Washington, DC. Address inquires about the call for papers or the conference details to: Dr. Faith Lamb Parker, Project Director, Columbia School of Public Health, CPFH, 60 Haven Avenue B3, New York, NY 10032, (212) 304-5251, Fax (212) 544-1911.
The relationship between parental alcohol or other drug problems and child maltreatment is becoming increasingly evident. And the risk to the child increases in a single parent household where there is no supporting adult to diffuse parental stress and protect the child from the effects of the parent's problem. The following is excerpted from a fact sheet produced by the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse (NCPCA). For a complete copy of the Fact Sheet call NCPCA's Communications Team at (312) 663-3520.
What is the scope of the problem?
Both alcohol and drug problems are widespread in this country. Almost 14 million adult Americans abuse alcohol.1 The number of illicit drug users exceeds 12 million, with illicit drugs including marijuana, cocaine, inhalants, hallucinogens, heroin, and non-medical use of psychotherapeutics.2 With more than 6.6 million children under the age of 18 living in alcoholic households,3 and an additional number of children living in households where parents have problems with illicit drugs, a significant number of children in this country are being raised by addicted parents.
Child maltreatment has become a national epidemic. More than one million children are confirmed each year as victims of child abuse and neglect by state child protective service agencies, and state welfare records indicate that substance abuse is one of the top two problems exhibited by families in 81% of the reported cases.4
Do parental alcohol and other drug problems cause child maltreatment?
Recent research on the connection between these problems and child maltreatment clearly indicates a connection between the two behaviors. Among confirmed cases of child maltreatment, 40% involve the use of alcohol or other drugs, suggesting that of the 1.2 million confirmed victims of child maltreatment, an estimated 480,000 children are mistreated each year by a caretaker with alcohol or other drug problems.5 Additionally, research suggests that alcohol and other drug problems are factors in a majority of cases of emotional abuse and neglect. In fact, neglect is the major reason that children are removed from a home in which parents have alcohol or other drug problems. Children in these homes suffer from a variety of physical, mental, and emotional health problems at a greater rate than children in the general population. Children of alcoholics suffer more injuries and poisonings than children in the general population.6 Alcohol and other substances may act as disinhibitors, lessening impulse control and allowing parents to behave abusively. Children in this environment often demonstrate behavioral problems and are diagnosed as having conduct disorders.7 This may result in provocative behavior. Increased stress resulting from preoccupation with drugs on the part of the parent combined with behavioral problems exhibited by the child adds to the likelihood of maltreatment.
What characteristics do parents with alcohol and other drug problems and parents involved in child maltreatment share?
Histories of these parents reveal that typically both were reared with a lack of parental nurturing and appropriate modeling and often grew up in disruptive homes.8 Family life in these households also have similarities. The children often lack guidance, positive role modeling, and live in isolation. Frequently, they suffer from depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. They live in an atmosphere of stress and family conflict. Children raised in both households are more likely to have problems with alcohol and other drugs themselves.9
How does a parent's alcohol or other drug problem affect children?
Children of alcoholics are more likely than other children in the general population to suffer a variety of physical, mental, and emotional health problems.10 Similar to maltreatment victims who believe that the abuse is their fault, children of alcoholics feel guilty and responsible for their parent's drinking problem.11 Both groups of children often have feelings of low self-esteem and failure and suffer from depression and anxiety. It is thought that exposure to violence in both alcohol abusing and child maltreating households increases the likelihood that the children will commit and be recipients of acts of violence. Additionally, the effects of child maltreatment and parental alcohol abuse don't end when the children reach adulthood. Both groups of children are likely to have difficulty with coping and establishing healthy relationships as adults. In addition to suffering from all the effects of living in a household where alcohol or child maltreatment problems exist, children whose parents abuse illicit drugs live with the knowledge that their parents' actions are illegal. While research is in its infancy, clinical evidence shows that children of parents who have problems with illicit drug use may suffer from an inability to trust legitimate authority because of fear of discovery of a parent's illegal habits.
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