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Children
in Welfare Face Trouble Ahead
EVANSTON,
Ill. --- Children in families on welfare or in families transitioning
off welfare since the implementation of welfare reform are at high
risk for poor cognitive development and problem behavior, according
to a policy brief by Northwestern University and Boston College
researchers.
Preschoolers
in sanctioned families -- families who have had their benefits reduced
or eliminated for failure to follow stricter welfare program rules
-- are among the most vulnerable for emotional and behavioral difficulties.
That
finding and others suggest an urgent need for services and intervention
and reflect the latest research conducted in Boston, Chicago and
San Antonio from "Welfare, Children and Families: A Three-City
Study."
"Preschoolers
whose families were sanctioned and left welfare were three times
as likely to show rates of serious emotional and behavioral problems
as children in national samples," said Lindsay Chase-Lansdale,
primary author of the new brief titled "Welfare Reform: What
About the Children?"
"We
are not saying that sanctions caused these problems, but rather
that sanction policies have identified vulnerable families with
vulnerable children," Chase-Lansdale, professor in Northwestern
University's School of Education and Social Policy and Faculty Fellow
at the Institute for Policy Research, added.
The
new policy brief suggests that leaving welfare, particularly after
experiencing sanctions, may be extremely stressful for families
with young children. "Because new federal welfare rules limit
the time families can remain on welfare to five years, we surmise
that children in families who will soon hit their time limits may
show similar difficulties as those families leaving welfare after
being sanctioned," Chase-Lansdale said.
The
study also looked at young adolescents and found that two out of
every five young adolescents in families on welfare had emotional
and behavior problems serious enough to require intervention and
treatment. These conclusions were based upon a widely used, highly
reliable measure called the Child Behavior Checklist.
"Without
immediate mental health and educational interventions and services,
these vulnerable children and youth will face a future with the
odds stacked heavily against them," said Chase-Lansdale.
While
considerable research focuses on adults in welfare and sanctioned
families, The Three-City Study focuses particularly on children
and young adolescents, using in-depth measures and multiples sources
of information to track children's healthy development and school
achievement. "What About the Children?" is the first to
use in-depth measures to see how children in sanctioned families
are faring.
To
disentangle the effects of poverty from the effects of welfare,
the researchers divided their sample of 1,885 low-income preschoolers
and young adolescents living in low-income neighborhoods in Boston,
Chicago and San Antonio into four groups.
Those
groups consisted of:
1)
children in families on welfare after the implementation of welfare
reform in 1997
2)
children in families who transitioned off welfare since the stricter
welfare restrictions imposed by welfare reform were put into place
3)
children in families who transitioned off welfare prior to welfare
reform
4)
children in families with low incomes who never accessed the welfare
system.
In
comparing the young adolescents in these groups, the researchers
discovered that those in families on welfare fared worst off of
all.
"Forty-two
percent of young adolescents in families on welfare have very serious
and troubling emotional and behavior problems that require intervention
from mental health providers," Chase-Lansdale said. Adolescents
in welfare families also show lower levels of cognitive achievement
than other low-income teens in the sample.
With
only one wave of data, the researchers cannot definitively conclude
whether or not welfare reform has caused the problems that they
have identified. However, the study has allowed them to identify
seriously vulnerable groups of children who are in trouble now and
require immediate attention.
The
new policy brief outlines policy options that are immediately available
for those vulnerable children in sanctioned families. They include
assistance to families on welfare to bring them into compliance
with the welfare rules before they are sanctioned; closer monitoring
of sanctioned families; and the provision of additional supports,
such as mental health services, academic enrichment and after-school
programs.
"Welfare
Reform: What About the Children?" was written by Northwestern
University's Chase-Lansdale, Boston College researcher Rebekah Levine
Coley, and Brenda J. Lohman and Laura D. Pittman of Northwestern's
Institute for Policy Research.
The
complete policy brief is posted on the World Wide Web at <www.jhu.edu/~welfare>
with other research from the Three-City Study.
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