The University of Florida and Florida's Children In Need
Marion County Children's Alliance Annual Children's Breakfast - November 6, 2008
Good Morning!
I want to begin by telling you how pleased and honored I am to speak at this morning's breakfast.
The Marion County Children's Alliance has a great reputation in North Central Florida as a champion of organizations that work on behalf of children. Our sheriff, Sadie Darnell, has said, and I quote, "the Marion County Children's Alliance is 'very solid' with 'strong leadership'." She should know. She chairs our own budding children's alliance, which is being modeled on your group.
Not long ago, pediatricians at Shands Hospital treated a sick infant, and they requested a follow-up visit for the next day. However, the mother, who was from Ocala, could not make the trip back to Gainesville. She only had $6.
Such incidents have become common at our hospital, where specialty clinics serve kids from two hours away or more. The recent spike in gas prices was the tipping point, but the underlying hardships are rising unemployment, increased poverty, and more strained social services.
Unfortunately, I think things will get worse.
The financial markets remain jittery and states and cities are struggling. It's particularly bad in Florida, epicenter of the housing bust. I know people are hurting here in Marion County. I know that E-One, Fluid Routing Solutions and Merillat have closed plants, laid off workers, or plan to. Unemployment here has nearly doubled in the past year, reaching 8.5 percent in August. Ocala was recently declared to be in a recession, joining most of Florida and the rest of the U.S.
Many of you see the impact: More families who need cash to keep the lights on or put food in the fridge. More families losing their homes. More moms and dads who need intervention to keep a stressed situation from becoming an abusive one.
I was surprised to learn that your wonderful Food for Kids Backpack program sends almost 600 schoolchildren home every Friday with meals to tide them over the weekend. Six hundred kids who don't have enough to eat at home! And, this only at the start of what will be a long recession.
At this point, you may be thinking, "what do Marion County's kids and the Children's Alliance have to do with the University of Florida?"
My answer is this. Although it is not always obvious, you and UF are connected.
Organizations in the Marion County Children's Alliance focus on issues ranging from youth mentoring, to substance abuse counseling, to drop out prevention, to legal services, to recreation. The University of Florida, while obviously not a child advocacy group, has similar breadth.
Like you, we touch children's lives in diverse ways. Often, your work and our work intertwine. Let me start with our most seemingly far-removed mission: Research.
The University of Florida is a big national research institution. Last year, our 5,200 faculty members received $561 million in research grants. UF experts tackle many topics close to your work: Improving education in high poverty schools, helping disadvantaged students achieve, and combating diseases that disproportionately strike poor kids.
I just mentioned your Food for Kids Backpack program. Childhood nutrition has become a major issue in this era of rising, preventable type 2 diabetes and obesity in young people.
More than a third of kids today are overweight or obese, and minority and poor children are hardest hit. One cause: The cheapest food is usually the most unhealthy, a fact not likely to change as the economy worsens.
Medical researchers in UF's Health Science Center are active in this key area. For example, UF and the University of Miami together operate the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation Gene Therapy Center for the Prevention of Diabetes.
Our scientists have made interesting discoveries. UF experts on taste recently learned that children who suffer from chronic ear infections might be at greater risk of obesity. That's because ear infections appear to damage an important taste nerve in the middle ear, leading to a preference for fatty foods.
Research is really important to the University of Florida, but many of our faculty and students also strive to improve the lives of kids now. It's just what we as faculty do.
We do a lot of service work with kids - all kids, but also struggling kids. UF agricultural extension service's Florida 4-H program, which celebrates its 100th anniversary next year, traces its roots to agriculture and home economics. But today, by far the highest percentage of the over 200,000 Florida 4-H'ers are urban kids. Twenty percent are black, paralleling the state's population. Children in need from Pensacola to the Keys are also involved in UF programs devoted to after-school enrichment and academic tutoring.
More broadly, for over four decades our Health Science Center and Shands Hospital have been this region's epicenter for children's health services. We are often the only option for children with complex medical problems who need care from pediatric subspecialists. But what I want to emphasize today is our commitment to uninsured or Medicaid patients. Last fiscal year, Shands Healthcare provided over $115 million in charity care. Of 1,479 children admitted from Marion County last year, 1,028 were uninsured or on Medicaid -- 70 percent!
UF also provides specialty care to 2,600 Marion County children with special needs through the Ped-I-Care network of local pediatricians.
Discouragingly, the Commonwealth Fund last spring ranked Florida 50th among states on 13 measures of childhood health care.
Obviously, securing adequate medical care for disadvantaged children - for all children -- dwarfs the University of Florida's capabilities. But we do what we can...when we can.
My background is in pediatric dentistry, so I am most familiar with the huge gaps in preventative dental care and treatment for poor kids. Nationwide, nearly 30 percent of poor pre-school children have untreated cavities.
In Marion County, two years ago, our senior dental students, supervised by Department of Health dentists, handled nearly 600 children visits. We did not have a student rotation in Marion County last year, but I am pleased to say that we expect to resume in January.
In February, UF plans to open an $8 million, state-of-the-art pediatric dental facility in Collier County which is targeted at poor children. This came about as a result of a unique collaboration between UF, a Naples philanthropy, Edison College and Collier Health Services, Inc. I know there are similar needs elsewhere, and I hope we can develop innovative collaborations in other counties.
We also have a third mission: Education. When it comes to the children we are talking about today, education is what sews our three missions together.
The College of Education is really where we see this happening.
I am sure you are all aware of the classroom training requirements for the hundreds of teachers who earn degrees every year. But you may not know of the college's varied efforts to improve teaching in high poverty schools.
One new program allows teachers in these schools to earn a master's degree, based on instruction from visiting UF faculty as well as online classes. About 100 teachers statewide are enrolled, with the first class of 30 graduating this year. Here's the important thing: The program is free, on the condition that teachers remain in their school for five years.
This seeks to get at the fact that half of all teachers quit in the first five years, with high poverty schools facing the worst attrition.
Let me conclude with a couple of thoughts.
First, my goal in giving you concrete examples of UF's work with poor children is partly to inform - but also to get across a sense of the possibilities open to you and your organizations for interaction with UF. Recessions pose a cruel irony: More families need social services at precisely the time when government gets cut. We have already seen this cycle take hold, and it will take all of us pulling together to provide the alternatives.
In addition to all the programs I have discussed, UF has a huge supply of active student volunteers. So, whether you seek the advice of a UF expert, wish to establish links with a UF program, or simply need some enthusiastic volunteers, try us. As I said earlier, we are in this together.
My second thought is that the conversation about poverty and children almost invariably dwells on the problems - broken families, dropouts, medical and educational deficits, and so on. But, while poverty may be a stigma, it is not a crime. Many children raised in families with few resources grow up to become productive citizens and great successes - often, with help from organizations such as those here today.
I am proud to say that I believe we have over 1,100 such students at the University of Florida, including at least six from Marion County.
We call them Florida Opportunity Scholars.
Luisa Betancur, a May 2007 graduate of Belleview High School here in Marion County, is one of our scholars. Luisa, whose family is from Columbia, moved to Ocala about ten years ago. Her dad is a Paso Fino trainer. A sophomore at UF, she maintains a 4.0 average.
Luisa said, and I quote, "There are thousands of students throughout the nation who are very skilled, competent and intelligent. However, they are not getting the education they deserve because of financial reasons."
In other words, give kids the opportunity for growth and success and they will make you proud.
With the economy worsening, with an increasing number of worthy kids in need of a hand up, that should serve as our inspiration -- and our guidepost.
Thank you.
Bernie Machen