Groups to work together, seek private funding to help Will County’s children

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Tempie Bates, executive director of the Harvey Brooks Foundation, stresses a point during the discussion of findings in the Illinois Kids Count 2012 report in the Spanish Community Center on Thursday, Feb. 9, 2012, in Joliet, Ill. | Matthew Grotto~Sun-Times Media

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Updated: March 11, 2012 8:47AM

JOLIET — The closer area social service organizations can work together, and the less they depend on government funding to accomplish their missions, the better for Will County’s needy children.

That was the consensus of social service workers Thursday as they reviewed an annual report on the state of child welfare in Illinois.

Voices for Illinois Children, a privately funded child advocacy group, published the state’s annual Kids Count data book Thursday.

On a national level, the Kids Count report is a state-by-state compilation of data provided by the Casey Foundation that is intended to measure the well-being of children, educationally, socially, economically and physically.

Representatives from Will County social service agencies met Thursday at the Spanish Community Center to discuss the findings and talk about solutions.

A main point of discussion focused on the need to increase private funding for programs and organizations.

“For those of you who think the state is going to solve everything … there’s therapy,” said Michael Trench, executive director of the Will County Community Foundation, a fundraising and charitable organization that grants money to meet local needs. “We need to rethink funding.”

Kids Count report

The Illinois Kids Count 2012 report found good and bad trends.

The bad — the state’s budget crisis has chipped away government investments in early childhood programs, child care and prenatal care.

It also found wide racial-ethnic disparities among children in academic achievement and levels of education.

One in four Illinois children lives in a single-parent household, and, in 2010, one in five children lived in poverty.

However, Illinois has expanded access to health care, the report said. In 2010 fewer than 5 percent of children were not covered by health insurance.

Also, the federal Earned Income Tax Credit and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program have helped alleviate poverty among families with children, the report said.

In 2009-10, the report said, 11 percent of children in Will County were living in poverty, up from 7.9 percent in 2007-08.

In June 2011, 66,068 Will County children were enrolled in medical assistance programs, up from 62,065 in June 2010.

‘Work better together’

Instead of lobbying legislators for more money, the social service workers decided to focus on improving their communication and collaboration.

“This information gives us a springboard to work together,” said Tempie Bates, executive director of the Harvey Brooks Foundation. “We have a lot of committees. We talk a lot. But I would like to see us really step up to the plate and really use our voices as advocates for families.

“I ask that we look at this information and think about how we can work better together.”

The full Illinois Kids Count 2012 report can be viewed online at www.voices4kids.org.