~ The Good Community Committee ~

A Call to Action to Help Children of Our Community
By Tom Carlson & Dave Coonrod
Published April 1, 2007

It is not trite to say that our children are our future. We join together, as mayor of Springfield and presiding commissioner of Greene County, to suggest today that we are shortchanging our future by not paying enough attention to what is happening to our children right here in Springfield and Greene County.

A little over a week ago, the organization called America's Promise Alliance named Springfield/Greene County as one of the 100 Best Communities for Young People in the nation. It was given to us in recognition that we are a community that recognizes the problems of our children . It was an honor, and also a call to action.

It is true that most of our children are doing quite well. It is also true that, despite current efforts, we remain a community in which too many children are not prospering. No award can change the fact that Greene County exceeds all other counties in Missouri in the practice of child abuse and neglect. We know that 13 percent of children in the Springfield Metropolitan Area are growing up in poverty. (In one of our legislative districts, 30 percent of the children are living in poverty.) Many of our children are living precarious lives on the edge of a cliff.

The 100 Best Communities Award must be a call to action. We must reinvigorate our efforts to help children who have already fallen into crisis. Those crises involve drug (including alcohol and tobacco) abuse, delinquency, homelessness, teen pregnancy and gangs (the list goes on and on). These are our children, and we must not abandon them.

The abuse and neglect and suffering borne by children are all preventable. As individuals, as families and as a community, we must do what it takes to learn what our kids need in order to grow into responsible adulthood, and we must provide that support for them.

And we need to do that at a time when resources are dwindling. As the News-Leader reported in its March 15 issue, federal dollars spent on kids dropped from 20 percent of domestic spending in 1960 to 15.4 percent today. That trend, if continued, will be 13 percent in 2017. Those of us fortunate enough to call the Ozarks home can do better with the resources we have.

Working smarter will include greater concern with the prevention of problems. The research on child development is clear. An ounce of prevention really is worth a pound of cure. Let us renew our efforts to stop children from falling off the cliff, rather than picking them up at the bottom with an ambulance.

We all have an opportunity to join in the task of taking better care of our children by participating in the Mayor's Summit on children on Tuesday, which will focus on "Our Children in Poverty" (call 864-1656 for further information). The summit will mark the beginning of a communitywide process designed to create a broad plan for working together on behalf of our children.

Through this effort, and others, we hope that people here in the Ozarks will continue to work, and work hard, to increase an awareness of the lives of children and to provide the kind of support that children need to succeed in life. When we do that, we will redeem the promise of our future, as well as their future.

I’m an immigrant to the Ozarks. My wife and I made the transition from Southern California eight years ago. Between the seamier sides of Los Angeles and 10 years working with a Christian relief and development agency in Latin America I thought I had a grip on the tragedy and heartache that poverty and self-destructive choices could bring. We have come to love the pristine hillsides of the Ozarks and thought that we had left behind some of the less savory dimensions of large city metropolitan life.

We regularly arrive home on the last plane of the day from responsibilities outside of Springfield. That means frequenting 24 hour “super-centers “at odd hours.

The most poignant of those visits for me occurred early on in our experience here. It has been repeated too many times since then. “Moms and dads” with kids in tow walked the aisles, profanity raining down on the children like water in a June thunderstorm. Dark glasses on women partially covered what cosmetics couldn’t. Calves in a FFA show ring are treated with more respect than some of the pre-schoolers we saw; children who had obviously been raised on the high decibel levels of heavy metal music 24/7. This reality check left me speechless. I went back to my car, thought of my own grandchildren, and wept.

Conservative estimates predict that we will reach a 50% level of subsidized breakfast and lunch for our school children in Springfield public schools in the year 2013. There are some in our region who deny we have a problem with poverty, substance abuse and violence. A state that records more methamphetamine arrests than other states and a county that ranks at the top of our state in reported domestic violence reveals another picture.

I recently attended the Mayor’s Summit on Children and listened to the challenges facing our city, county and region. We heard the sobering statistics and listened to plans that will address the issues facing us. At the front of the auditorium were large signs proudly announcing that Springfield was recently chosen as one of the 100 Best Communities for Young People for the second year in a row. That national recognition is well deserved and every Springfieldian should be proud. Our continuing task is to see that these significant resources are most broadly accessible.

Why should the good citizens of Springfield care about the needs of the children that I have described in my midnight shopping excursions? Because we have the capacity to do so! If power can be described as the potential for influence, then we have the power already present to deal with these sobering issues.

Numbers can be manipulated to say many things, but I remember the little boys and girls the age of my grandchildren whom I saw that midnight. These kids and so many others in their same plight deserve the basic dignities that can give them a future of hope. The adults in their lives deserve a chance to break out of the cycles of self-destruction and hopelessness that may have existed, in some cases, for generations. For this city to continue to be a “best” community for all its citizens we can and we must act like the community we say we are.

Investment in Children Must Top Priorities
By Norm Ridder
Published June 10, 2007

On March 1^st of this year in a presentation to “Good Morning Springfield,” Mayor Tom Carlson gave the State of the City Address to a group of present and future community leaders. Concluding his presentation, the mayor mentioned that the most critical responsibility we have as a community is to keep children first in everything we do. I could not agree more. Children are our life. Children are our future. We as a community have outstanding parents, teachers who are second to none, and children who are very bright.

In keeping children first, we must first focus on helping each child understand what it means to be a responsible global citizen. This means that each child should develop the skills, knowledge, and appropriate behavior to build relationships, solve problems, thinking critically and communicate with others.

Each of us in our journey through life seeks truth - truth about ourselves, our world, about God. This journey begins as children recognize their responsibility to learn. This responsibility is learned best in the home and must be taught and supported in the school and larger community. Outside the home the most critical adult who is closest to the child is the teacher.

In my 35 years in education and 30 years as a parent, I have found that the most important value to teach children is to take responsibility for their own lives. I believe that adults who work with children often assume the child knows how to be a responsible learner. This assumption can lead the child away from a healthy pursuit of truth to confusion and depression.

The way to assure that children are truly first and to build a vibrant, healthy community is to make every effort to surround young people with responsible role-models who assure that children take responsibility for learning. The best teachers – in the classroom and in life - lead by example. They demonstrate that the pursuit of knowledge is a never-ending adventure. It’s what makes life worth living. And those who benefit most profoundly from this pursuit are, not coincidentally, often best able to collaborate and connect with their communities and their world.

That’s why adult support of our children’s education must expand beyond the school day. As families, as neighborhoods, and as a community we must constantly help our young people reach their potential. In the home, it’s the little things like play-time, healthy conversation, and structured discipline that help our children learn to trust the adult world they live in and feel confident they can be a productive part of it.

As a community, we must provide activities and events that engage children to explore and learn that while the Ozarks is a safe and truly great place in which to live and grow, there’s a bigger world out there full of wonderment and profound challenges.

Kids need help to process and interpret the world around them. As adults - parents, care-givers and role models - the responsibility is enormous, but so is the pay-off. It is the adults in this community who extend a grasping hand from one generation to the next and who ultimately must keep the passion for learning strong and vibrant.

So indeed the notion of “children first” is more than a feel-good concept. It is vital to the on-going success of this community and everyone who lives in it – young and old alike.

Innocent Beliefs of Young Children Should Make Adults Take Notice
By Sara Lampe
Published June 17, 2007

Children have a knack for saying what is true, what is real. A good bit of my thirty one years working with children was spent talking in order to teach ideas. The children I taught also taught me, however. When I stopped to listen to children’s thoughts and ideas, I was always amazed at the clarity and truth of what they said. Children speak simply and honestly about what is right and what is wrong. I believe there are many lessons to learn from children if we stop to listen.

I recently asked a group of fourth grade students what they would vote for if children could vote. Their answers were so simple and yet so profound. They said they want to be the smartest they can be when they leave school. They want time to play, time to read, and food and medicine for those who are hungry or sick. Children want things to be fair. They want to be safe. They want everyone to get what they need. And they want us to protect the Earth. If children could vote, these are the things they would vote for.

I heard in the remarks of these fourth graders many truths about fairness and safety and responsibility. The old expression, “Out of the mouths of babes” comes to mind. Children tell the truth, and the truth is sometimes hard to hear.

Because children cannot vote and do not get to choose their family’s income, they depend on adults to make choices to support their needs. Funding for children and public schools has decreased in recent years leaving fewer public resources for children. With a slight change in priorities we can reverse this trend. Investing in children builds their success; investing in children secures their future as well as ours and is sound public policy.

The investments communities make in their public schools allow every child to have a chance for a good life. A student I taught in the 70s has written, “A great education has given me a wonderful career and life.” Punishing schools and teachers doesn’t help students understand their subjects better. Crowding classrooms does not help children learn. Children who come to school hungry, abused, neglected or homeless cannot effectively learn.

The fourth graders’ comments remind me that we must ground our policies in the common good, that our values and our ideals bind us together. We all agree that our children’s future is paramount, but do actions expressed through public policy say otherwise?

Would we under fund education if we knew it was our child who would not receive the educational intervention she needed?

Would we fail to fund health care for children if we knew it was our child who could not see a doctor if he were sick?

Would we ignore our fragile environment if we knew it was our child who would have trouble breathing because of air pollution

Children have a clear system of values. They recognize we are all in this together and we have a stake in each other. They recognize the need for caring for others. Children remind us that our actions and policies reflect the values we hold.

I suggest that we listen to what children have to say. Without giving your opinion, ask a child you know what he or she would vote for. Then listen. You might just see the world not as it is, but as it should be.

Sara Lampe is State Representative from the 138^th District in Springfield.

Children’s Healthcare: Community Health Centers Filling the Gap
By John Bentley, M.D.
Published June 24, 2007

Every child deserves to receive adequate health care, yet many fall through gaps in our medical safety net. Hundreds of community health centers across the U.S. struggle to fill that gap in care, including the Jordan Valley Health Center here in Springfield.

A community health center is a family practice medical home, providing care beginning with the prenatal months; infant care with immunization, adolescent care including school physicals, and adult care including elderly care. Community health centers are staffed by family practitioners, internists, nurse practitioners, physician’s assistants, psychologists, dieticians, and dentists - a complete medical/dental home, especially for children. Their cost of care ranks among the lowest and they reduce the need for more expensive care, saving taxpayers billions of dollars.

Children with no health insurance frequently receive their health care from an urgent care center or emergency room, and only when a crisis occurs. So for the routine illnesses and problems such as the chronic earache, the painful tooth, belly ache, excessive weight, behavior or learning problems, all of which are not life threatening or emergencies, care is often postponed or never obtained.

The results of such delays can be devastating. Recently the News-Leader opinion page carried a national column entitled “Horror Story in Healthcare,” by Clarence Page which told the story of a seventh grader living in Washington D.C. who died as a result of an untreated dental abscess. Marion Wright Edelman, founding head of the Children’s Defense Fund, is now taking this and other stories to Capitol Hill to try to convince Congress to close the gaps in health coverage for children.

The dentists at Jordan Valley Health Center see children every day whose dental problems are overwhelming. In Southwest Missouri there are an estimated 40,000 children on Medicaid; 17,000 of those children live in Greene County. In 2006 the Health Center saw 1,237 uninsured children. These patients have no Medicaid and their “sliding” fee is based on household income. Of these, 300 were under 5 years of age. An additional 7,000 children were seen who were Medicaid recipients. Of these more than eight thousand children, approximately 5,000 were seen by the dentists and 3,000 were seen at the medical clinic – a good “dent” in the 40,000, but, sadly, leaving many without adequate care.

It goes without saying that access is the key to providing healthcare to children, and access means not only making it financially possible for families to be seen but also making it physically possible for them to use the Health Center services. This is especially important for the children, who must be brought to the Center by parents who often have to leave work or who don’t have transportation. Jordan Valley Health Center now provides medical care at the dental clinic in order to eliminate the second trip (often the child with a serious dental problem has multiple untreated medical needs.)

The Center also has providers in the schools and the LINK program, so that children can be seen without a trip to the Health Center. Last month over 300 children were treated in these settings. A Jordan Valley nurse practitioner sees children at the WIC clinic each morning and then goes to the Transitions program in the afternoon where 10-15 children are seen each month. Each of these children is offered the opportunity to become a permanent patient of the Center, thereby helping to establish a medical home.

Providing healthcare to the Medicaid or uninsured child is a challenge, and even with the Jordan Valley Community Health Center’s funding, the small fees often become a burden for families. The Center continues to explore ways to ease the financial load through grants or donations.

There should be a uniform level of care for all children; those children with a medical home will grow and perform better. Community health centers can achieve this goal.

John Bentley is an internal medicine physician and health care provider at Jordan Valley Community Health Center.

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Abused Never Alone
By Stephanie Montgomery
Published July 1, 2007

More than five thousand domestic violence calls are recorded in Springfield every year. That’s thirteen per day, a very unlucky number for a lot of abused women and children. Each call represents a family in crisis. For every one made, numerous others go unreported. In roughly half of the homes where violence occurs, children are victims too.

Approximately one third of all women will be victims of domestic violence sometime in their lives. Children in those homes hear their mother’s screams and pleas for mercy, the abuser’s threats and degrading language. They cower in fear when fights erupt that end with bruises and sobbing. Such children live in a world where right and wrong are twisted and give way before brutal confrontations. The lessons they inevitably absorb affect how they behave and how they understand the world to work. Far too often, the cycle of abuse and neglect will one day be repeated.

Children in an environment that breeds violence have much to deal with beyond the healthy range of normal childhood struggles. These children experience extreme levels of anger, resentment, confusion, aggression, and sadness. Children from abusive homes tend to carry a burden of guilt that is hard for most of us to imagine. Some feel that they somehow caused their mother’s agony. They feel responsible for the abuse and helpless to stop it.

Children as young as four or five try to be self-sufficient to improve their situation. They try to support their mothers and be responsible for the family. When they should be enjoying childhood, they are forced instead to assume adult-like worries and responsibilities.

Most current resources in our community such as The Child Advocacy Center, Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA), The Family Violence Center, Parenting Life Skills Center, and The Victim Center are organized to detect child abuse and provide direct services to women and children who are victims of abuse.

These are all vital services but to dramatically lower our abuse rates, we must also focus on prevention. We must address the root causes and risk factors.

Research tells us that violence is more likely to occur in families that experience poverty, marital conflict, social isolation, and poor maternal mental health. In 2001, the Division of Family Services identified the top characteristics of perpetrators in Greene County child abuse probable cause cases. They were: unrealistic expectations of the child, drug and alcohol related problems, and immaturity. These risk factors must be addressed if we are to kill the root of abuse and neglect.

One new prevention tool will be available in June when the Junior League opens Isabel’s House. Designed to provide support before abuse occurs, Isabel’s House is a safe haven for parents and children in crisis. Parents can bring their young children to Isabel’s House when they are experiencing problems, such as losing a home, going through drug rehab, or hospitalization. Once through the door, children are protected and parents are referred to other community service providers. By sheltering children and supporting parents, a problem situation can be resolved without violence, and families are more likely to stay together.

Isabel’s House is a good beginning. It can deal with a handful of the families where child abuse and neglect are in the making, yet, if we let it lift our eyes above the horizon and search for additional ways to add prevention strategies to our efforts to care for our children, Isabel’s House will represent a big beginning indeed. Who will catch us when we fall? We will. We must.

Stephanie Montgomery is past president of the Springfield Junior League

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Pay Now or Pay Later
By Brian Fogle
Published July 8, 2007

What if I told you that a device has been invented that will save you money on your gas bill for your car. For a one-time investment of $100 this year, I could guarantee that you will save at least $1,700 over the next 40 years on your transportation expenses. What if I told you that you can pay a tax this one year of $10, and it will save you from paying at least $170 in taxes over the next four decades. There are compelling arguments for such investments, wouldn’t you agree?

What if I told you that as a nation, region, and community, we have consistently said no to similar opportunities to achieve a high return on a vital investment? In a research paper published by Rob Grunewald and Art Rolnick of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve in June of 2005, a review of several studies on Early Childhood Development (ECD) participants in educational and juvenile justice programs reflected a savings of $3 to $9 each over an intermediate term and even higher in the long-term.

One of the most notable of those studies tracked low-income participants of a 1960’s Perry Pre-school education program in Yipsilanti, Michigan, against a control group of similarly low-income children who had not participated in an early childhood educational program. The study noted that 65% of those in the ECD graduated from high school versus 45% of the control group. By age 27, there were four times more ECD participants making in excess of $2,000 per month while the non-participants were five times more likely to have five or more arrests.

Over a 40 year time horizon of the study, the costs saved on extra productivity attributed to the ECD participants versus the non-participants showed benefits of $17 for each $1 invested in the ECD program. Significantly, 75% of those dollars benefited the public in lower justice system costs and other public infrastructure that was required to support the non-ECD participants.

Several similar studies have shown annual returns of between 7 and 16 percent for investment in Early Childhood Development programs. These are not intangible, pie-in-the-sky numbers but are hard cost savings due to fewer juvenile justice expenses, lower alternative educational costs, and other public outlays in the K-12 years.

Why, then, have we been unable to muster public support for such programs? Some states have generated some support. For instance, children in neighboring Oklahoma now have the opportunity for pre-kindergarten programs in a relatively new state-funded initiative. Such examples, sadly, have been the exception.

The Minneapolis Fed paper concludes “The evidence is clear that investments in ECD for at-risk children pay a high public return. Helping our youngest children develop their life and learning skills results in better citizens and more productive workers. Compared with the billions of dollars spent each year in high-risk economic development schemes, an investment in ECD is a far better and far more secure economic development tool. Now is the time to capitalize on this knowledge.”

Our choice is to pay now, or pay later. If we find the will to pay now, we can invest a relatively small amount of money in early child development and receive a big community pay-off. If we pay later, we will spend a lot more money in the future continuing to build jails and prisons and absorbing the costs of the lost productivity of those children who fail to become productive citizens.

Our decision becomes one not only of good sense, but as the researchers of the Minneapolis Fed have pointed out, dollars and cents.

Brian Fogle is Director of Community Development for Great Southern Bank.

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Toxic Playpens
By Kevin Gipson
Published July 15, 2007

Chronic abusers of methamphetamine are often anxious, confused, violent, and uncontrollable. Their children suffer the consequences.

A recent example: When a nurse from the Springfield/Greene County Health Department visited the home of a meth-addicted mother, she discovered a three year-old girl and her newborn sister. Both children were dirty, their faces covered in dried milk. The girls were confined in a playpen most of their waking hours. The playpen was dirty and littered with the soiled blankets the girls slept on.

The mother was gone most of the time. In the house were two unrelated males. The 3-year-old girl’s comments and demonstration of inappropriate behavior alerted the nurse to potential physical and sexual abuse.

The nurse contacted the Division of Family Services and a probable cause abuse investigation ensued, which resulted in the children being removed from the home. Parental rights were eventually terminated. Fortunately, this story has a good ending. A loving family adopted the two girls. The sisters gained the caring parents that all children deserve and need. This doesn’t always happen.

These and similar scenarios occur frequently in Springfield and Greene County. A high percentage of tragic situations of child abuse and neglect involve methamphetamine addiction.

Meth addicts place their craving above all else. The drug comes first. In addition to their abusive, neglectful behavior, meth addicts often place their children in dangerous environments where meth is being cooked, sold, and used. These children are exposed to dangerous chemicals, the threat of explosion and fire, and interaction with other addicts who are also out of control of their lives and behavior. Methamphetamine users often display an insatiable sex drive and lowered sexual inhibitions, which place their children at increased risk of sexual abuse.

Federal, state and local agencies are working to put laws and programs in place meant to slow the methamphetamine epidemic. Some have been successful. The precursor laws that limit the purchase of large quantities of pseudoephederine (the prime ingredient of meth) have had a significant impact on the number of illegal meth labs in our area. This, in turn, has helped reduce the environmental risk to children living with meth addicts.

Treatment programs for methamphetamine addicts are expensive and the recidivism rate is high. Still, we must make these programs affordable and accessible. Family centered counseling for meth addicts, their spouses, and children is needed to help keep families intact if at all possible.

As citizens we need to commit to making our community’s children a priority. Meth production and use is one of a whole network of destructive factors which together take a heavy toll on our children, families, and community.

We must reach out to children trapped in toxic environments if we hope to improve the likelihood that they will eventually become healthy, productive adults. So many children grow up to perpetuate the behavior they learned in childhood, even if it was unhealthy. If our community works smart with its resources to promote effective prevention strategies for these tough issues, we will give our struggling children a better chance and lower the toll we will all pay if we fail to act.

Kevin Gipson is Director of the Springfield/Greene County Health Department.

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Clean up the World Our Children Live in
By Lloyd Young
Published July 22, 2007

My psychologist friend, Dave Dixon, puts it this way. When the stream becomes polluted and the fish begin to sicken and even die, you have two alternatives. You can try to change the fish so that they can prosper in any kind of stream, or you can clean up the stream. The analogy is not perfect, but let us use it to think about our children. In many ways our children are much like the fish in the stream, and the social world (family, neighborhood, community) they live in is the stream.

We often ask why our children turn out the way they do, and the truth is that nobody knows for sure. We have bits and pieces of understanding. We know that genes—heredity—play an important role. Still, that which distinguishes us as human beings--our language and ability to communicate with it, our ability to think abstractly, the ability to make moral judgments, a sensitivity to beauty, an awareness of ourselves and our own finiteness—only develops as we grow up within the human community. Children are born with marvelous and unique potential, which is developed in the context of relationships with other. Those relationships are the “stream” in which the “fish” develop and swim.

There are many kinds of sickness showing up in too many of our children’s lives. Too many of them are aggressive, cannot get along with others, have no respect for authority, are trouble-makers in their schools, get tangled up with the criminal justice system, and—in fact—too many of them are already dead in terms of their future possibilities for a rewarding life.

Much of what we do in response is to try to change the fish so that they can live in any kind of stream. The terms in vogue right now include making children “resilient,” and increasing their “social and emotional” readiness. Please don’t misunderstand me. These are important concepts and there is good evidence that these efforts do make a difference. We need to continue them, but we also need to find strategies to clean up the stream.

Consider the context our children grow up in. It is more full of contention, agitation, controversy, and distrust than I have ever seen in my long life. Look at the letters in your newspaper. Watch political ads on TV. Tune into talk radio. Consider what the tenor of our public discourse does to the young.

Consider the image of the “good life” that is extant in our world. The philosopher René Des Cartes once said, Cogito ergo sum. “I think, therefore I am.” The modern version of life’s meaning is “I purchase, therefore I am.” In our world life is measured in possessions, and our tastes are insatiable. Success is portrayed as life in the big house at the top of the hill; it is never about what happens in the small house at the bottom of the hill. And pleasure is defined as immediate gratification, or escape. What does that do to our children?

Our stream is full of violence, real and imaginary. It is full of people who have come loose from any meaningful tie to family, neighborhood, or community. The symptoms are everywhere: the dirty diapers thrown out the car window onto our public roadways; the people who never vote; those who have internalized no moral compass from the community; the children who have no phone number to be called in case of an emergency. The hordes of people who live alone in the shadow world of drugs.

Every reader knows the story I am talking about. In too many ways we have fouled the stream into which our children are born and in which they grow up. And in which too many of their lives are sold short. The children, as Daniel Patrick Moynihan put it, “whose futures are spoken for.”

Yes, we need to help all of the individual children we can who are in trouble. Even more progress will be made when we turn our attention to cleaning up the stream. The Good Community Committee began with a conference on urban violence in 1995. At that conference, Cardinal Bernard Law gave us good counsel. “If you really want to deal with violence and its associated problems, you must write a whole new cultural script.” We—I repeat, WE--must take responsibility for cleaning up the stream. It is simply not enough to expect the small children among us to become able to make their way in a world so filled with pollutants.

Lloyd Young is Professor Emeritus, Missouri State University

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Family Friendly Workplace is Strong Choice for Businesses
By Jim Anderson
Published July 29, 2007

The well being of our community, including the well being of our children, is integrally linked with the health of our economy. Good schools, high test scores and an educated workforce make the Springfield area an attractive place to live, work and run a business. Consequently, it is in our economic interest to provide for our children and build a strong network of support between families and business.

But how do we build a network of support that is efficient and sustainable? One avenue is to encourage businesses to implement child-friendly policies that boost the bottom line.

By implementing family friendly policies like on-site child care, flexible schedules and work-share options, businesses stand to gain from lower employee turnover, higher morale, and greater productivity. In a tight job market, employees are quite capable of voting with their feet. Family friendly policies can help attract and retain a quality staff not only to an individual company, but also to our community as a whole.

Several area companies already recognize the value of offering perks and policies that help ease the burdens of working parents. Take T-Mobile USA for example. T-Mobile selected Springfield as the site for its inbound call center in 2005, in part because of the availability of a quality workforce. Keeping its customer service oriented staff motivated and happy is a priority.

Brad Phillips, a senior representative for T-Mobile recently told the Springfield Business Journal “We realize that 99 percent of our customers are never going to talk to management staff. Our frontline employees are T-Mobile to our customers. We need to treat them right, so they treat our customers right.”

Family-friendly policies are among the ways T-Mobile is striving to retain its quality staff. The company offers 19 personal days available in an employee’s first year, a child-care subsidy program, private room for nursing mothers and multiple family days such as a fall festival and an open house barbeque.

“It’s just good for business,” says Richard Ollis, President & CEO, Ollis & Company, of creating a family-friendly working environment. “We think a well-rounded associate is going to be far more productive.”

Ollis & Company offers limited flex time and work from home options for its associates, and a wellness initiative that extends beyond its staff allowing family members to take advantage of health risk assessments, flu shots and other wellness related benefits.

The company’s efforts don’t stop there.

“We’re an ‘open book’ company,” says Ollis. “We want the family members of our associates to be just as informed and engaged in the success of the company as our staff.”

Family members are invited to attend the company’s annual meeting to help them better understand what company ownership is all about and to help reinforce to them that they own a piece of it. The company also holds family-oriented events throughout the year including picnics and a family night at the Springfield Cardinals.

By providing working parents with options that assist with childcare, offer flexibility to deal with the responsibilities of parenthood, and welcome family members into mom or dad’s work-world, these companies and a growing list of others in the Ozarks are helping to strengthen families.

Considering the best interests of our children now will have a long-term positive impact on our future.

When businesses support working parents they boost the bottom line, whether in terms of their own business success, the community’s financial prosperity or the men and women of tomorrow who will become knowledgeable, contributing members of our society.

Jim Anderson is President of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce

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Kindergarten Success is Vital and Begins with Community
By Pam Hedgpeth & Carol Lohkamp
Published August 5, 2007

New crayons, fresh markers, and pencils with crisp erasers…these are some of the things that come to mind when we think of children going off to school for the first time. But children entering kindergarten need more than school supplies in their backpacks. To be successful in kindergarten they also need such tools as flexibility, self-help skills and emotional maturity. Being prepared to start school is an essential first step toward eventually becoming responsible adults.

Kindergarten is no longer the traditional three-hour day of coloring, nap time and animal crackers. Today’s five-year-olds attend a full school day and are expected to master many reading, math, and science skills which most adults learned in first or second grade. In addition to academics, kindergarten children must learn to interact with others as part of a social group, follow the hidden rules of socially acceptable behavior, and balance their individual needs with the expectations and needs of the group. Today’s kindergarteners must develop a wide and growing array of academic, social and emotional skills or risk falling behind.

As we seek to develop the full potential of our students, many influences must be addressed. To encourage their success, we must consider the whole child and not just traditional academic performance. Research at local, state and national levels confirms the vital link between social and emotional development and future school success. Knowing how to cooperate with others, understand and express feelings, and approach new situations with enthusiasm, curiosity and persistence in completing tasks are equally important to academic knowledge.

As this school year draws to an end and parents start preparing for next year, we encourage them to spend time this summer talking with their children, reading books, and playing together.

Kindergarten is a wonderful, special time in a child’s life. Students make friendships, explore the world, and discover their unique talents and abilities. Kindergarten is also a critical year for children as they step into the broader world and onto the path of formal education. Much is at stake as each child walks through the school-house door to start their school career. We must do everything we can to help them succeed.

Children come to school with a variety of backgrounds and experiences. We passionately believe that encouraging the potential within each child starts with a successful pre-school and kindergarten experience. Communities that provide the best possible care for their youngest citizens not only demonstrate humanity toward their children, but promote improved quality of life for all.

Future benefits for any community begin when children receive healthy early care, effective early prevention programs for those who show signs of struggling, and a successful kindergarten year. With that strong foundation in place, children are ready to succeed in school, and in life. Communities have few responsibilities that are more important.

Pam Hedgpeth is Superintendent of the Republic School District and Carol Lohkamp is the Principal of the Republic School District Early Childhood Center

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First Years Most Crucial
By Dottie Mulliken
Published August 12, 2007

I believe in the power of community. I believe that collectively we can accomplish a great deal more than we can individually. I don't think we have come together as a community for the sake of our children, but I believe we can.

My husband and I have 7 children – all adopted – including a sibling group of 5. When our first 5 were placed with us, they ranged in age from 5 to 12 years of age. We worked hard at parenting them. We made sure one parent was at home full time. We sacrificed our retirement to take family trips in an effort to counterbalance some of the horrific experiences that had occurred in their young lives before we ever met them.

We loved them unconditionally, yet set limits on behavior. We were active in their education, advocating for their needs, yet supporting the authority of the school. We assigned chores and worked side by side. We attended church and tried hard to model a spiritual perspective in our daily lives. (Not hard to do – we relied on divine help day by day!) We involved them in therapy, and supported them in making friends. We once made a trip to Orlando with 10 kids in our 15 person van! Our extended family members embraced them as our own. We didn't do everything right by any means, but we acknowledged our mistakes and moved on, always thankful for the learning provided by our children.

Our kids are grown now – the youngest a junior in college. The social workers all say they are doing better than they ever thought they would. But we have heaviness in our hearts. One daughter overdosed two weeks ago. She is in a codependent relationship with an abusive man. Just this weekend her two children stayed with us. At 18 months and 3 years of age they have incredible separation anxiety. Both parents have been in jail – the dad for failure to pay child support for his other 4 children.

The stories continue: One son is in prison. Another son has 6 children with two women and continues to see each. My kids love their children but can not always do what is necessary to parent well.

Ed and I did so many things right as parents. Where did things go wrong? As we learned more about research on brain function, and early development, we began to understand. We didn't have much of a chance with shaping the behavior of our first 5 kids. It was done for us by the time they moved to our home.

A newborn's brain is only about one-quarter the size of an adult's. But by age 3, it has grown dramatically by producing billions of cells and hundreds of trillions of connections, or synapses, between these cells.

Although all of the neurons in the cortex are produced before birth, they are poorly connected. These connections become "wired" through use and experience. "Pruning" allows the brain to keep the connections that have a purpose – a "use it or lose it" situation. Our daily interactions with children establish these connections – for life. When early experiences fail to support infants or toddlers, their ability to learn, grow, and succeed in later life is compromised.

Conception through age 5 is the most critical time for shaping lives, although research suggests that there is some continuing opportunity for change into adulthood. Healthy, stimulating experiences foster optimal brain development. The costs (in human suffering, loss of potential, and real money) of trying to repair, remediate, or heal children is high.

As a community we must move beyond blaming parents, business or government for children who manifest problems. We must rethink the balance between individual and shared responsibility for children. All children are our children. Let this guide our actions and decisions.

It is amazing that my children do as well as they do. But their struggles become mirrored in their children; in my grandchildren. We now have 24 grandchildren. My children have brought me to a commitment to prevention. We must focus on promoting healthy development during the first few years of life.

There is no mystery to improving the lives of the children in our community. We must find the will and the commitment to make that our priority. We need to:

· Love our children and promote their feeling as well as their thinking.

· Ensure our children have nurturing, dependable relationships with caregivers.

· Make certain our children have good nutrition, an environment safe from toxins, freedom from drug exposure and chronic stress.

· Understand that significant parental mental health problems, substance abuse and family violence impose heavy developmental burdens on young children. Take decisive action to prevent this.

· Work to keep families together. Pass a county-wide bill that would enable us to enact a "kiddie" tax to implement sound programming for young children.

· Support one another; always keep hope alive, but remember that it is easier to do it right during those first 5 years. As a community, let's come together to cherish, nurture, feed, discipline, and create a good, safe place for each of our children.

It's not too late for my grandchildren. But Ed and I can't do it alone. We need to be part of a community that cares for its children; that makes children a priority. This is our collective future. Let's do it together.

Dottie Mullikin is Director of Prevention for the Missouri Department of Mental Health and serves on the Mayor's Commission for Children.

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Preschool Should Help Every Student
By Gail Melgren
Published August 19, 2007

Few people would be cold hearted enough to dispute the notion that all young children deserve basic care. Babies in diapers cannot be expected to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Most of us realize that for a community to thrive, it must protect and nurture its young. But how do we do that? What approaches would really make a difference?

Too many children in the Ozarks, as elsewhere, are poisoned daily by the deprivations of poverty, mental illness, drug addiction, and cultural norms that accept and perpetuate abuse. Even children born to relatively prosperous and stable families can still be derailed by marital disruption, media overload, unstructured home lives, and overburdened schedules.

If we are to improve the lives of children, what cost-effective, research-supported, initiatives can be implemented to help all children, especially the most vulnerable ones among us? I suggest one clear option: pre-school for all children who need it.

The evidence is powerful: investments in early care and prevention programs for children provide big benefits to a community both in dollars and quality of life (www.minneapolisfed.org/research/studies/earlychild/.) Pre-school would provide those benefits. Yes, there are costs involved, but the community would see a return on investment far greater than the initial funding.

Great potential benefit lies in providing quality pre-school to young children. Structured educational programs provide exposure to cognitive, social and emotional building blocks with which children can develop a healthy successful self. This kind of exposure can make a big difference in learning how to read, how to write, how to resolve conflicts without violence, and how to see themselves as destined for success rather than failure.

The School Readiness Project (Mayor’s Commission for Children, 2007) reports that kindergarten teachers in our region find about 20% of children enrolled in kindergarten are not ready to cope with a school environment. Those children are at risk for all the major pitfalls in development. Pre-school could make a critical difference.

One recent study (Hustedt, Barnett, Jung, 2007) estimated the effects of pre-school programs on entering kindergarteners’ academic skills. The findings were extraordinary (http://nieer.org/resources/research/NewMexicoReport0507.pdf.) As a result of attending New Mexico pre-school programs at age 4, children showed gains in vocabulary that were 54 percent greater than the gains of children without the program. Pre-school education increased children’s gains in math skills by 40 percent compared to children’s growth without the program. Children who attended pre-school before entering kindergarten knew more letters, more letter-sound associations and were more familiar with words and book concepts. Data like these suggest great potential benefit in providing quality pre-school to children.

Where better to provide pre-school for children than our public schools? Facilities, expertise, and accountability structures already exist. Why reinvent the wheel? With sufficient funding, schools could expand the scope of pre-school care without having to build a new bureaucracy. Many districts have limited pre-school programs already in place and want to expand to be able to serve at least all their at-risk children. Springfield should be and can be a leader in this area.

There are no perfect solutions, but I am convinced the opportunity exists every day to improve the lives of children.

If we are to support the children in our community, to tap their potential and help protect them from harm; if we are to transform the destinies of vulnerable children, and strengthen fragile families so they can overcome cyclical poverty, neglect, and abuse; if we are to reduce the cost borne by society to remediate or incarcerate struggling young people, then our best hope lies in the provision of early care to children.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe famously wrote, “Dream no small dreams for they have no power to move the hearts of men.” I submit that as a community we should dare to dream big. Babies cannot improve their own lives. They are dependent on the choices we make. If we start with an understanding that all young children deserve basic care, hopefully we can find the will and the way to build a system of care for young children, including affordable, quality pre-school for all who need it. In so doing, we have the opportunity to become a community that leads the way toward making a difference in the lives of children.

Gail Melgren directs two leadership development programs for Missouri State University and is a staffer for the Mayor’s Commission for Children.

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Educated People Make Society Better for Everyone
By Michael T. Nietzel
Published August 26, 2007

Since America’s founding, it has been spirited by a faith in the power of education, especially public education. It is part of the foundation of our democracy, a cornerstone on which this country built and sought to improve its governance. At its best, public education, whether in elementary, middle, high school or at any of the nation’s thousands of public universities and community colleges, instills the fundamental understandings, skills, and habits, without which a meaningful democracy would falter and ultimately fail. What are the outcomes of public education that sustain our democracy?

Begin with the obvious – general knowledge and specific skills that are essential to meaningful and personally satisfying work. Educational requirements for the jobs and occupations of the future are increasing. The knowledge demands of the 21st century are upping the ante for educational attainment. The coin of this realm is knowledge; those with it can prosper and enjoy more personal autonomy, while those without it risk marginalization and greater dependency. More and more, knowledge will be the great equalizer, and that it is why society is obliged to maintain the best system of public education possible.

Although education – especially at advanced levels – conveys many personal advantages such as greater personal income (across the average lifetime, a college graduate makes about $1 million more than a high school graduate), its greater value is found in the social benefits that it produces. Without these benefits, our economy will erode, and we will eventually be weakened as a society. Among the social advantages linked to having more education are lower levels of unemployment, better overall levels of health, less demand on public assistance and social support programs, higher levels of voting, and greater rates of volunteering for the public good. These qualities are indicators of a democracy’s vitality, and education remains the single most effective public intervention we have for improving this vitality.

Successful democracies depend on everyday citizens reliably applying core democratic principles. Education is the key tool for preparing us to be effective practitioners of democracy. From early ages, it teaches us how to compete, a useful motivator in many situations. But it also teaches us how to cooperate and collaborate, and that dynamic is increasingly important in a world that is threatened by impassioned differences. Education shines a light into the darkness of inadvertent misunderstanding as well as intentional prejudice. It should develop students’ capacity to become critical thinkers, capable of reasoning and communicating well and of feeling confident that they have built a sturdy basis for what they believe rather than relying simply on convenient preference or unexamined biases.

The most important, cumulative impact of education should be the creation of graduates who are persistently curious. Persistent curiosity is the trademark of individuals who pursue a personal interest that captures both their minds and their hearts and that allows them to make a difference in the lives of others. Curiosity also is critical to an understanding of the major issues about which citizens should be well-informed: options for health care, the moral implications of new medical discoveries, the local implications of international politics, alternatives for the criminal justice system, and the nature of civil rights. A viable democracy depends on its citizens maintaining a desire and a demand to be informed. Such curiosity, in turn, drives an active participation in communities, and it sustains the fundamental democratic activity of voting. Finally, effective education compels our desire to keep on learning – after we graduate, after we raise our families, and even as we grow old. It keeps democracy nourished and, therefore, alive.

Michael T. Nietzel is President of Missouri State University

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Generosity Can Improve Children’s Lives
By Rob Baird
Published September 2, 2007

This series of essays, sponsored by the Good Community Committee, has focused on issues related to children in our community. As a long term participant in the Good Community effort, I have been asked to give a perspective on the role of the private sector in funding efforts to improve the lives of children. Given the size of the challenges facing our area in this regard, and given that the availability of scarce public funds varies independently of our need for them, it seems clear that private funding now plays and will continue to play a crucial role in our ability to develop community solutions to community problems.

The resources required to address the needs of children in our community exceed the merely financial. Of course, some of the things that children need to thrive cannot be bought. Still, financial resources are essential to efforts to improve their daily lives and future prospects. We must continue to ask ourselves not only what efforts actually work, but where the funds will come from to pay for those efforts.

Every community and society faces this question. Alexis de Tocqueville already noticed in the early nineteenth century that American culture relied heavily on “philanthropy,” or private generosity, to meet essentially public needs. The idea of addressing community needs through individual giving (as opposed to other means, like taxes) depends on the cultivation of a particular sense of obligation and commitment to others that is captured in the word “philanthropy.” Although people often think of “philanthropy” in association with immense wealth and names like Carnegie and Rockefeller, Buffett and Gates, the important aspect to note in the examples they set is not the scale of the resources involved, but the ethos of commitment and obligation they embody. It was de Tocqueville’s point that this ethos is open to everyone, as part of our American culture, and that the society needs everyone’s participation, if it is going to take this approach to public welfare.

Although philanthropic leaders in our area may not be famous, we have an active and engaged group of benefactors. Many individuals and private organizations routinely direct part of their wealth toward meeting the needs of local children. Working collaboratively and purposefully, they