Young Child Risk Calculator

November 27, 2012 8:07 AM

From The National Center For Children in Poverty: Young Child Risk Calculator: "The risk factors used in this tool are known to increase the chance of poor health, school, and developmental outcomes for young children. Economic hardship paired with any of the listed risk factors may indicate a greater chance of poor outcomes. Children with three or more risks are exceptionally vulnerable. Information about the prevalence of young children experiencing these risks can inform policies aimed at improving outcomes for vulnerable children and reducing the number of children experiencing early risks."

See also: Early Childhood [State Policy] Profiles: "NCCP’s Early Childhood Profiles were produced as part of the Improving the Odds for Young Children project. These profiles highlight states’ policy choices that promote health, education, and strong families alongside other contextual data related to the well-being of young children."

posted by OmieWise (6 comments total)

Fosterhood (a great blog by a foster parent in NYC) mentioned something similar a few months ago; unfortunately foster children often hit multiple risk factors.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:23 AM on November 27, 2012

Thanks much for this link. I've sent it on to our local children/youth nonprofit collaborative group.
posted by HuronBob at 8:45 AM on November 27, 2012

Yep, "Single Parent" is always a risk factor, as opposed to "Staying Together for the Children While Creating a Toxic Atmosphere for the Entire Family" which obviously isn't.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:34 AM on November 27, 2012 [3 favorites]

That's your takeaway?

I think you're misunderstanding what a risk factor is in this context, and what is meant here by "single parent" and how that plays out from a policy perspective. The consensus (and it is a consensus) that single parent families (read: predominantly families lead by single women) is a risk factor for poor outcomes for kids is not a moral judgement on single parents, or a suggestion that raising a child in a single parent household is always going to lead to a bad outcome. It grows from the correlation between single parent households, poverty, and the lack of an effective social safety net that can adjust for the lack of support from a second parent. There is even research that shows higher levels of depression among single mothers, which in turn leads to all sorts of poor parenting engagements. Here is a brief article from the Atlantic detailing some of this in re poverty.

This isn't some sort of Focus on the Family bullshit, it's a set of agreed upon indices of epidemiological risk, and it's the basis for a lot of progressive policy advocacy. It has very little to do with any individual family, your family of origin or anyone else's.
posted by OmieWise at 10:11 AM on November 27, 2012 [9 favorites]

Yep, "Single Parent" is always a risk factor, as opposed to "Staying Together for the Children While Creating a Toxic Atmosphere for the Entire Family" which obviously isn't.


Like it or not, paying for two domiciles is expensive. Expensive enough to correlate statistically to problems.
posted by ocschwar at 10:22 AM on November 27, 2012

Norwalk CT attests homeless mother for enrolling her son in her babysitter's school district (instead of her previous address)
posted by jeffburdges at 5:51 PM on December 4, 2012