“This is the hardest thing that's happened to families in 80 or 90 years, right? Absolutely parents feel abandoned and desperately in trouble right now. Either because, in some cases they don’t have enough to eat or they can’t make rent, or they’ve had to cut back on work, or quit work entirely to do childcare, or because they're doing remote learning and it's not going well…” |
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According to a new fact sheet from Health Policy Institute of Ohio, 61% of Ohio adults reported exposure to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). ACEs are potentially traumatic events that occur during childhood and fall into three categories: abuse, household challenges and neglect.
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Children’s health
According to Gongwer News, leaders from Ohio children’s hospitals told the state Early Childhood Advisory Council about trends observed during the last year. Data from six children’s hospitals show that while overall admissions are down, the admissions they do have tend to be among children who are much sicker on average (including for behavioral health reasons, incidences of which have increased). The lack of preventative care (or delays in care, such as well checks or dental visits) during the pandemic, along with rising mental health challenges, will hopefully inform the governor’s strategies for investments in children in his upcoming state executive budget.
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Ohio politics
Here’s an insightful review from Ohio Capital Journal reporter Tyler Buchanan that recaps the 133rd Ohio General Assembly, and shares overall data on bills passed and the consequences of a supermajority in both chambers.
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Racial equity & COVID-19
It is unsurprising – but still unacceptable and important to name as such – that vaccination eligibility and distribution is falling along lines of race and income. We know that public health authorities have a tremendously difficult job at the moment, and that leadership and help from the federal government could go a long way to alleviate local challenges (read Gov. DeWine’s letter to the new Biden Administration to learn more about immediate examples).
And yet, it’s hard to reconcile stories like these: “Columbus health commissioner: Early stand-by list for COVID vaccine was a 'misstep'” and “Columbus Public Health won't answer why non-priority people got COVID vaccine” with the fact that Ohio’s early childhood educators, most of whom have continued to care for young children in person during the pandemic, still wait to hear about their place in the vaccine priority line. Early educators are teaching little ones who cannot social distance well or wear masks, and they’ve been doing it for almost a year. Many child care programs have even served as de facto schooling sites, after a state ruling last year enabled child care centers to allow school-age children to conduct their schoolwork on site while schools were shut down. Honestly, the past few weeks have served up a difficult reminder of how overlooked our early childhood community is, and how urgent it is that we collectively wake up to their importance and begin to better advocate for them.
We also know that vaccination is a deeply urgent racial equity issue, and that there are other factors at play – such as the Black community’s understandable mistrust regarding government-administered vaccines (which the Akron Beacon Journal artfully describes in this piece). Still, the ease with which many (well-resourced and white) people seemingly have been able to sign up for vaccine priority in the early days of roll out, while so many others are asked to wait, feels deeply problematic and worth naming. So many aspects of the pandemic have harmed communities of color and those living in poverty disproportionately, whether a lack of consistent medical care, or the vaccine scenarios described above, or the fact that large urban districts have had a more challenging time logistically returning to in-person schooling than suburban or small, private schools (thus erecting extra barriers for certain families over others). All of this is to say: there is a tremendous amount of work ahead.
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Federal updates
There’s a lot to track federally and we’re hopeful that the Biden Administration will bring forward new investments to support families and children. For instance, President Biden has announced a $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package which includes:
ZEROTOTHREE has several policy resources highlighting proposed agenda items for the 117th Congress and the Biden-Harris administration to support the health and well-being of children and families.
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Join Crane’s director of research Dr. Mitsu Narui and program assistant on the CCAMPIS program DeVaughn Croxton for our Virtual February Crane Research Forum on February 3rd from 12-1 pm. They will share new Crane research on student parents as a part of the Child Care Access Means Parents in School (CCAMPIS) program, a collaboration with OSU’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion. Register here.
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This piece describes, in a nutshell, how the pandemic has dramatically stalled momentum on public preschool expansion efforts in places like San Antonio, Texas. They’re certainly not the only city in this boat.
This article outlines 10 succinct examples of how states and schools have confronted new challenges. Kentucky’s efforts to expand trauma-informed education, and Nevada’s digital task force focused on student access, seem worth learning more about.
This article highlights a program in Colorado that is “the only federally registered apprenticeship for early childhood education.”
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Columbus local PR leader Heather Whaling pens a timely op-ed for Business Insider on the need for a nationally funded paid leave program.
EdSurge describes a new report by Bellwether Education Partners and the National Head Start Foundation on how to expand the “talent pool” in early education. The full report can be accessed here.
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The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services announced this week that Ohio students who rely on free and reduced meals will continue to receive money to purchase food through the Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer program through the end of the school year.
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A study published in JAMA Network (and described here by Education Week) found that young adolescents may be the most vulnerable to the impacts of toxic stress. The study examined the effects of six types of household dysfunctions at various ages on later adverse outcomes, and discovered that exposure to negative experiences in early adolescence was more strongly associated with later adverse outcomes than was exposure at other points in childhood. This is not to say that exposures to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among young children don’t lead to negative outcomes later. Rather, as researcher Signe Hald Andersen noted, “This [age-related] finding may reflect the sensitivity of the adolescent brain or suggests that activities disrupted by [household dysfunction] during adolescence (e.g., education) are more vital for later outcomes than the activities disrupted during early childhood.” One important limitation worth mentioning is that the study was based on young people in Denmark, a country with a far more robust social safety net, less income inequality, and arguably fewer toxic stressors facing young people in general.
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This edition written by: Jamie Davies O'Leary, Associate Director of Policy and Caitlin Lennon, Communications & Policy Specialist |
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