What happened after the declarative and impassioned report of the Joint Commission on the Mental Health of Children (Challenge for the 1970’s)?
25 years later (1994)
In 1994 came The Report of the Carnegie Task Force on Meeting the Needs of Young Children drawing attention to the first three years of life. The Task Force wrote: “Across the United States, we are beginning to hear the rumblings of a quiet crisis. Our nations’ children under the age of three and their families are in trouble, and their plight worsens every day.”
Findings of Task Force: A significant number of children under three were confronting one or more major risk factors: inadequate prenatal care, isolated parents, substandard childcare, poverty, and insufficient stimulation. Nearly half of infants and toddlers were starting life at a disadvantage, not having the supports necessary to grow and thrive.
The problems were described as many and massive; but the task force assumed that, given sufficient focus and political will, America would begin to find its way toward solutions. They said: “We can formulate and implement social policy that responds over time, to the most urgent needs of our young children and their families. We can begin to reverse a pattern of neglect.”
24 more years go by
February 2017_Report of the Children’s Defense Fund
- The United States has the second highest child poverty rate among 35 industrial countries despite having the largest economy in the world.
- It is a national moral disgrace that there are nearly 15 million poor children and 6 ½ million extremely poor children in the United States of America.
- The younger children are, the poorer they are during their years of greatest brain development.
- This degree of poverty is unnecessary, costly and the greatest threat to our future national, economic, and military security.
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