Collaboration right move to help kids

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Updated: March 13, 2012 10:34AM

One in five Illinois youngsters lives in poverty, and 33,000 are homeless.

That’s according to the Illinois Kids Count report released last week. While not shocking given the state’s high rate of unemployment, foreclosures and general sour economy, the figure is staggering nonetheless.

The villains, of course, are the looming effects of the recession and a continued decline in state funding.

Our kids are in jeopardy.

What’s even more troubling than the problem is the seeming lack of viable remedies. We have little faith lawmakers can, or will, produce a safety net large enough to prevent more kids from becoming statistics during the next year, let alone save those currently in this predicament.

The national Kids Count 2012 report offers a snapshot of how children across the country are faring socially, physically, educationally and economically.

Here in Illinois, the declining investment by the state has hurt early childhood education programs, child care and prenatal care, the report found. There are also gaps in academic achievement and education levels based on race and ethnicity, the report found.

Still, to be fair, it wasn’t all bad news.

The state has expanded access to health care for kids. Now, fewer than 5 percent of Illinois children were without some health insurance, the report found.

Federal efforts, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, have helped ease the burden on some families.

More can always be done. Hope is not lost.

We must work together to find solutions on our own. That’s why we say kudos to the several social servants who are banding together to find their own solutions.

Their plan has merit. State coffers have just about dried up, if they aren’t barren already. So, collaboration is a good idea.

“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,” Tempie Bates, executive director of the Harvey Brooks Foundation said last week at Joliet’s Spanish Community Center. “I ask that we look at this information and think about how we can work better together.”

Bates is right.