Report says area children faring worse

On several measures of well-being, Cape Girardeau County's children are faring worse than they did in 2001, according to the latest Missouri Kids Count report, released Thursday by Citizens for Missouri's Children.

The number of Cape Gir?ardeau County children receiving free or reduced price lunches at school, the number born to mothers without high school diplomas and the number involved in child abuse or neglect cases were all up in 2005, the year the new ratings are based on, the child advocacy group reported.

The good news is that generally the county is better off than most in the state, but the county's overall ranking fell from 25th last year to 30th this year.

The Cape Girardeau County ranking is the best in the region. The most dramatic change in ranking took place in Perry County, which moved from 75th in 2005 to 34th in the 2006 ratings on the strength of declines in the births to mothers without a high school diploma, a reduction in the dropout rate for high school students and a decline in births to teen mothers.

Other area counties sat lower in the ratings, with Bollinger and Scott counties at 82nd and 83rd, respectively, out of 115. Bollinger County fell in the ratings slightly while Scott County rose.

Three Bootheel counties, Stoddard, Dunklin and Pemiscot, were at the bottom, with only the city of St. Louis ranking lower, according to the report.

One disturbing trend in the report, said Catherine Martarella, program director of Citizens for Missouri's Children, is a dramatic increase in the number of children seeking a free or reduced-price lunch at school. That figure, a common measure of poverty, increased from 23.9 percent of children statewide in 2001 to 31.8 percent in 2005.

"A family's economic stability has a great impact on a child's ability to develop into a healthy, productive adult," CMC executive director Beth Griffin said in a prepared statement.

In Cape Girardeau County and the surrounding three counties, the share of children seeking the low-cost school meals is higher than the statewide average. In Cape Girardeau County, the lowest of the four counties, the figure is 37.2 percent. In Scott County, the highest, the figure is 52.8 percent.

The increasing number of women with limited education having children is also a disturbing trend, the CMC reported. Better educated women are more able to provide for their children, the report said.

In Cape Girardeau, the county health department was forced to discontinue its family planning clinic at the end of 2006 because of rule changes that meant contraceptive supplies could no longer be purchased at a discount rate, said assistant director Jane Wernsman.

The center continues to provide pregnancy testing, she said, and is involved in a program that trains high school students to present programs in middle schools encouraging abstinence from sex. The program, in its 10th year, emphasizes self-esteem and resisting peer pressure, she said. "We have found that it is a pretty effective program," Wernsman said.

Scott County, too, has had difficulty maintaining programs to help women plan for pregnancies, said Barry Cook, director of the county's health department. "We deal with teen pregnancy all the time," he said.

County health departments also sponsor the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program that provides food vouchers and nutritional training for poor women.

According to the report, 156 children were born to mothers without a high school diploma in Scott County in 2005, and 98 births were to mothers from 15 to 19 years old.

Reducing those figures, especially the numbers of teen mothers, is a long-term process, Cook said. "When you get into those categories, you are looking at generational things," he said.

Cook said he is encouraged by the rise in this year's ranking. In 2004, the CMC ranked Scott County 94th in the state.

"Every bit of improvement is great," he said. "You have just got to work with what you have got."

While the decline for Cape Girardeau County isn't pleasing, Wernsman said the overall picture isn't bad. "When you look at the raw numbers involved, it is not that big a change."

The report is a collaborative project between the CMC, the Children's Trust Fund and 30 public and private organizations. The data was compiled from federal, state, county and municipal sources by the Office of Social and Economic Data at the University of Missouri.

rkeller@semissourian.com

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