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Products -- Safe from the Start Newsletter Archives
SFTS July 2002 News
The Safe from the Start project has designed a list serve for County Contacts to discuss issues
relating to childrenís exposure to violence. We are currently testing the system and have added
4 counties (Solano, San Francisco, Contra Costa, and Mendocino) to help us with the initial steps.
Eventually, all 58 County Contacts will be on the list serve and will be able to share information
to better serve the children in each county.
RESOURCES
KIDS COUNT, a project of the Annie C. Casey Foundation, is a national and state-by-state effort
to track the status of children in the U.S. By providing policymakers and citizens with benchmarks
of child well being. KIDS COUNT seeks to enrich local, state, and national discussions concerning
ways to secure better futures for all children. Data is now available from an easy-to-use online
database that allows you to generate custom graphs, maps, ranked lists, and state-by-state profiles.
Check out this new resource at
www.aecf.org/kidscount/kc2002.
RESEARCH
The Maternal and Child Health Bureau is launching a campaign to prevent
bullying among "tweens" (kids from 9 to 13) as part of the Center for
Disease Controlís National Youth Media Campaign. The campaign aims to
prevent and reduce bullying behaviors, identify and provide appropriate
interventions and foster linkages between the public health system and
other partners. To learn more, email Stephanie Bryn
sbryn@hrsa.gov
or Jason Smith jason.smith@widmeyer.com
This program teaches students, staff and parents skills to help children develop healthy
relationships and decrease bullying at school. It is designed for schoolwide implementation,
with lessons for the upper-elementary grades (3-5 or 4-6). Each grade-level set includes
one-skill unit, two literature units, two children's books, and six classroom posters.
Complete school program kits are $595.
www.cfchildren.org/violence.htm.
Part of the reason many inner-city children do not do well in school or socially may be
because they are suffering unrecognized emotional reactions from frequent exposure to
violence, according to a study of 7-year-olds. The study, involving 199 children, found
that 75% heard gunshots, 60% had seen drug deals, 18% had seen a dead body and 10% had
seen a shooting or stabbing in the home, says Dr. Hallam Hurt of the Albert Einstein
Medical Center in New York. "Children exposed to high levels of violence do poorly at
school and have symptoms of anxiety, depression and low self-esteem," Hurt reported in
the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.
A resurgence of interest in the relationship between cruelty to animals and serious violent
behavior, especially among young offenders, has occurred in the past 20 years. The Office of
Juvenile Justice and Delinquency (OJJDP) presents Animal Abuse and Youth Violence, a report on
the psychiatric, psychological, and criminological research linking animal abuse to juvenile
and adult perpetrated violence. It addresses the challenge of defining animal abuse and examines
the difficulty of deriving accurate incidence data for this behavior. For a copy of this report,
call the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse at (800) 638-8736 or check out OJJDPís Web site at
www.ojjdp.ncjrs.org.
In the face of a proposed budget cut of $116 million for juvenile crime and violence prevention
programs, a statewide voter survey released May 28th shows that 80% of Californians believe
expanding youth violence prevention programs would save taxpayers money in the long run by
reducing the need for prisons. Despite the economic downturn in the state, the poll revealed
that nearly three out of four voters think youth violence prevention programs should continue
to be funded at current levels. In fact, 53% strongly support increased funding for community
violence prevention programs, and 63% strongly favor expanding the state's after-school program
to include high school students.
TRAINING
Are you interested in scheduling a FREE training workshop in your area on "Alternatives: Youth
Recreation as Prevention"? This workshop is designed for youth-serving professionals and volunteers.
It merges the fields of youth development and alcohol and other drug prevention. The training covers
the development of prevention strategies from prohibition to the "risk and resiliency" approach.
It examines what youth need and identifies critical components of effective alternative activities.
The workshop also focuses on how to build a culture of community and ownership with your groups.
For information about scheduling, contact Evaluation, Management and Training (EMT) at (916) 983-9506
or email Heather Vasquez at
heather@emt.org
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