Family Connection Partnership News

First Lady Perdue Commends Efforts during Family Connection Day

Family Connection Partnership is celebrating the success of our recent Family Connection Day, an annual event recognizing effective community partnerships across the state that are helping children and families become healthier, ready to start and perform better in school, and more stable and economically self-sufficient. First Lady Mary Perdue, wife of Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue, was a featured speaker during the event and commended Family Connection for more than a decade of work.

Georgia First Lady Mary Perdue (far right) commends Family Connection for its work to improve the lives of children, families and communities in Georgia. Other featured speakers during the 2003 Family Connection Day were (l. to r.): Georgia Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, Speaker of the House Terry Coleman, Senate Majority Leader Eric Johnson, and Family Connection Partnership Executive Director Gaye Morris Smith and Board Chair Albert Wright.

"Family Connection's commitment to strengthening families is a wonderful model of how we can all work together to make a difference for families in our state," said Mrs. Perdue. "I commend you for meeting a crisis and looking for solutions. Our challenge is to continue preparing our kids for school to ensure they have the resources they need to be successful adults. We're proud of Family Connection's involvement in nearly all of our counties across Georgia, and I can't wait to see it in all 159 counties."

Other speakers included Georgia
Lt. Gov. Mark Taylor, Speaker of the House Terry Coleman, Senate Majority Leader Eric Johnson, Department of Juvenile Justice Commissioner Orlando Martinez, and Family Connection Partnership Board Chair Albert Wright. More than 400 people attended the event.

Family Connection Partnership, in partnership with Georgians for Children, also announced the release of the 2003 Georgia KIDS COUNT during Family Connection Day. Findings from the report say that the vast majority of the 2.2 million children under 18 in Georgia are experiencing a safe, healthy and nurturing childhood and have good opportunities to grow physically, intellectually, emotionally and socially; however, there is still much more work to be done.

"In the state of Georgia, more babies are born healthy, the teen pregnancy rate has declined, and fewer infants, children and teens are dying," said Gaye Morris Smith, Executive Director of Family Connection Partnership. "Infant mortality declined from 12.4 per 1,000 in 1990 to 8.5 per 1,000 in 2001."

Although this is good news for Georgia families, Smith said challenges remain in improving these statistics. Georgia continues to trail other states in the nation, according to the report, in the percentage of low birth weight babies (43rd), infant mortality (40th), child deaths (41st), and teen births (42nd). New national KIDS COUNT rankings will be released in May, linking state-by-state data with national data on children and families.

Key findings from the 2003 Georgia KIDS COUNT include:

• Progress in school readiness, with Georgia ranking favorably in national comparisons, with 56 percent of children ages 3 to 4 enrolled in pre-school, giving Georgia a rank of 7th in the nation.
  
• One-fourth of Georgia's students did not complete high school in four years.
  
• In 2001, Georgia had nearly 40,000 substantiated incidents of child abuse and neglect for a rate of 17.8 per 1,000. This is the highest rate in the past 10 years.
  
• The teen repeat birth rate remains a significant problem in Georgia, with 22 percent of births to mothers ages 15 to 19 having a second or higher-order birth.
  
• Nearly one-fourth of all Georgia babies are born to mothers with less than 12 years of education.
  
• Overall, child poverty fell from 20 percent to 17 percent, with the rate among black children declining from 40 percent to 30 percent.

KIDS COUNT is a state and national effort funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation to track the status of children. It features data from results in five areas: healthy children, school readiness, school success, strong families, and self-sufficient families.

Georgia KIDS COUNT provides citizens and policymakers with current data to make informed decisions about priorities, services, and resources impacting Georgia's children, families and communities. Child advocates and communities can use the data for in-depth analysis, enabling more effective community strategic planning. Individual county data is available online at www.georgiafamilyconnection.org.

To order your copy of the 2003 Georgia Kids Count, please call (404) 527-7394.