The economic well-being of kids in Maine is improving, but chronic school absence is impacting learning, according to a new report.

The 2024 Kids Count Data Book from the Annie E. Casey Foundation shows fewer children living in poverty. But the number of high school students not graduating on time has slightly increased, and the number of eighth-grade students lacking math proficiency has jumped to 76%.

Melissa Hackett, policy associate with Maine Children's Alliance, said post-pandemic trauma and learning loss remain a challenge.

"We know families are experiencing a lot of stressors at home and that makes it more challenging for young people to show up at school ready to learn," she said.

Hackett added she'd like to see greater state investment in community schools, which often have additional capacity to serve as a hub for student and family services - helping ensure basic needs are met so families can thrive.

Indicators for families and communities in Maine are improving, with fewer children living in single-parent households and more parents finding secure employment. Still, Hackett contended schools and families need to find non-punitive ways to ensure kids are in the classroom.

Leslie Boissiere, vice president of external affairs with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, said rates of chronic absenteeism among students are nearly double pre-pandemic rates.

"Their test scores tend to be lower, they tend to be more likely to be suspended and less likely to complete school on time. It also affects the overall atmosphere of the classroom as the teacher is always working to catch students up," she noted.

Studies show students who don't advance beyond lower levels of math may be 50% more likely to be unemployed after high school.

Boissiere added the state can increase investment in its students with unspent federal pandemic money, and said ensuring students access to low-or-no-cost meals, in-person tutoring and mental health services will go a long way in helping to boost achievement.

More employers are offering benefits to adoptive parents, according to a new survey by the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption. The amount of paid leave offered to foster parents is now nearly 10 weeks, up 3% from last year.

Jeremy Madden, a resident of Liberty Township, Ohio, and his wife relied on workplace adoption benefits through his employer, Fifth Third Bank, to adopt their baby daughter. He said the process was easy and the financial reimbursement was a game changer, as adoption can cost thousands of dollars. Now, they've settled into life as a family.

"She's fantastic, we wouldn't change anything," he said. "She's brought so much joy and happiness into our life. She's developing her own personality. She is super smart."

Companies that offer new adoption benefits include Harley-Davidson Motor Co. Inc. and Ziff Davis Inc. Highly ranked companies include Ferring Pharmaceuticals and Liberty Media Corp., American Express and MongoDB Inc. Ferring Pharmaceuticals topped the list for providing unlimited financial reimbursement for adoption costs and 26 weeks of paid leave to adoptive parents.

Rita Soronen, the foundation's CEO, cited a 10% increase on average in financial reimbursement for adoption.

"It tells the employees that we're a family-friendly organization, that there's equity if we're offering benefits for families that are formed through birth, we also want to give benefits to families that are formed through adoption," she said, "and it creates a sense of loyalty and retention and goodwill."

She said it's important for employers to consider foster and adoption benefits, not only for its employees, but the good of the community.

"It says to the community that we understand that there are lots of ways that our families are formed," she said, "and we can provide the kind of supports that a family might need to move to that next phase of being a unified and thriving family."

According to the National Council for Adoption, 2022 saw the fewest number of adoptions from foster care since 2015, around 53,000 children nationwide.


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It is the first day of summer and time for a global event called the "World's Largest Swimming Lesson."

Albuquerque's West Mesa Aquatic Center will offer 400 free lessons to build awareness about drowning prevention.

Julia Romero, swim lesson coordinator for the city, said nearly 60% of Americans have said they either cannot swim or don't have basic swimming skills. She noted participation in formal swimming lessons can reduce the risk of drowning among children younger than 4 by up to 88%.

"What's really cool about this event is free swim lessons are happening across the whole world -- not just America, but different parts of the world too," Romero emphasized. "We're getting to play our part in it, too."

Romero noted New Mexico has the 11th highest drowning rate among states per 100,000 people, despite having only 292 square miles of water, compared with 40,000 in Michigan, which ranks 39th in the country. Since the World's Largest Swimming Lesson began, the organization said more than 380,000 children and adults in 53 countries on six continents have participated.

What it lacks in open bodies of water, New Mexico makes up in swimming pools. Accounting for population, Romero said the state has the third-highest number, behind Arizona and Florida.

"It's just not very frequent that you see an open body of water," Romero observed. "I don't think parents and other individuals -- grandparents, families -- know how accessible swim lessons actually are to them."

Romero frequently hears from older adults about a parent or grandparent who once threw them into a body of water as a kind of test, but swimming lessons were not a priority.

"They never actually learned how to properly save their own lives if they were ever in the water," Romero pointed out. "There's huge need on just education on water safety."

City swimming instructors will offer free 30-minute lessons from 9 a.m. until noon at the Aquatic Center on a first-come, first-served basis. Romero said swimming lessons will be offered by the city through July, with signups available in both English and Spanish at play.cabq.go.

An Ohio program that provides help for foster parents of children with complex behavioral issues is expanding. It offers 24/7 on-call crisis counseling and specialized training enabling more children with these difficulties to stay in a family setting. The program is now being replicated in other regions.

Casey Morrow, assistant director with the Sandusky County Department of Job and Family Services, said the Treatment Foster Home Pilot Program licenses families at a higher, specialized skill level better allows them to work with traumatized kids.

"What we were finding in our county is that we have children that have a much higher level of acuity of needs, and we were going straight from them needing a family foster home at a young age to having to go into congregate care, which is group homes or residential facilities, " Morrow said.

Ohio currently has more than 1,800 foster children who live in group settings because there aren't enough foster families willing to take on kids with significant behavioral challenges and needs.

Olivia Ramsey, an Attica resident and the foster parent of three girls, was licensed last summer through the program. She said the extensive training and personalized support she and her partner received has helped them keep the three siblings together, while working toward reunification with their biological parents.

"When we accepted the girls, the oldest was way out of our age-range, we requested to be licensed from the age of zero through five, and we took in a 10 year-old just because of that reason," she explained.

Melanie Allen, director of Sandusky County Department of Job and Family Services, said most counties can't afford to run a specialized program, but by collaborating with the Public Children Services Agencies in Seneca, Ottawa, and Wyandot counties, they've been able to maintain a robust program and share resources.

"What we found is that if we collaborated with a few other counties and pooled our funding together to share a worker, we could oversee a program that crosses multiple counties, which is what the new pilot model looks like," she said.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine recently announced more than $2 million in funding to expand the Treatment Foster Home Pilot Program to 34 counties across the state. The program will save the state money, given the significantly lower cost of treatment foster care compared with congregate care, Allen said.


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