That’s the proportion of children eligible for child care assistance under federal law who receive it. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Congressman Jim McDermott recently introduced an important bill that works to remedy this gap. The Ensuring Child Care for Working Families Act would guarantee child care assistance for families with incomes up to 200 percent of poverty who need child care to work or attend an education or training program. He was joined by Representatives George Miller, John Lewis, Gwen Moore, and Pete Stark.

Ask your Representative to co-sponsor the Ensuring Child Care for Working Families Act!

This bill makes a commitment to helping women and their families when they need it most. Right now, in 22 states, families who apply for child care assistance are placed on waiting lists for assistance or are turned away without having their names placed on a list.

As low-income families struggle to make ends meet and hold down jobs, a bill like Congressman McDermott’s would help remove one of the major barriers — lack of affordable, reliable child care — that can keep them from succeeding.

Tell your Representative that families deserve access to high-quality child care!

At a time when we are fighting attempts to slash child care assistance and other supports for low-income families at the federal and state level, this bill is a welcome change of pace. It would represent real progress in our efforts to expand access to child care for families.

Remember to take action today, and thank you so much for your ongoing work on behalf women and families!

Vintner Dinners

Thursday, April 19th, all over Charlotte!

Here is a listing of a select few!

• Bonterra
• Custom Shop
• Georges
• Halcyon
• Kings Kitchen
• Roosters
• Mortons
• Terra

Big Bottles and Blues

Friday, April 20th, The Ritz-Carlton Urban Garden

7:00 p.m.

Gala Event

Saturday, April 21st at The Ritz-Carlton

6:30 p.m.

]]> http://cfcrights.org/recent-events/charlotte-wine-and-food-weekend-april-19-22-quickly-approaching/feed/ 0 http://cfcrights.org/blog/nominate-council-for-childrens-rights-for-the-jimmy-johnson-blue-bunny-helmet-of-hope-award/ http://cfcrights.org/blog/nominate-council-for-childrens-rights-for-the-jimmy-johnson-blue-bunny-helmet-of-hope-award/#comments Mon, 09 Apr 2012 16:09:17 +0000 penny http://cfcrights.org/?p=1871 Continue reading →]]> You can help Council for Children’s Rights win a $10,000 award, an ice cream party, AND be featured on Jimmie Johnson’s helmet on June 24, 2012 at Infineon Raceway.  Simply visit the www.helmetofhope.org and fill out the brief nomination form.  If you have any questions, please reach out to Penny Hawkins at 704-943-9476 or penny@cfcrights.org.

Make sure you make your nomination by May 7th!

According to the Jimmie Johnson Foundation, the Helmet of Hope program gives fans and media members across the country the opportunity to nominate their favorite charity of choice to be featured on five-time reigning NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Champion Jimmie Johnson’s helmet for a select race.  Each charity also receives a grant of $10,000.  To date, the program has contributed over $300,000 to 49 different charities.

Past Helmet of Hope Charities

GAL Training Registration Form 3 23 2012

As some of you know, we have started a Guardian ad Litem program at the Council for Children’s Rights to assist Mecklenburg County with its increasing caseload.  The Guardian ad Litem program is structured like the Custody Advocacy Program at CFCR.  We pair a volunteer attorney with a volunteer advocate to investigate and determine the needs of an abused or neglected child.    The volunteers then make a recommendation to the court.   Every case will be supervised by a CFCR staff attorney.  The time commitment following the initial training is about 10 hours per month.  In addition, your case may require that you appear in court every ninety days, and a case can last 12 months or more.  However, each case is different so it is difficult to predict just how much time will be involved.  We do ask that you remain involved in the case until the court closes the case.

The training session for the Guardian ad Litem program will be held here at our office on Friday, March 23, 2012.   It is an all-day session and is a prerequisite to participating in the program.  Lunch will be provided.  We will submit an application to the North Carolina Bar for approval of 6.0 hours of general credit and 1.0 hour of ethics credit.  If you would like to attend the session please complete the attached form and return it to me.  Also feel free to contact me should you have any questions about the program.

For those of you who prefer to volunteer for the Custody Advocacy Program, we plan to hold a training session in mid-May.  I am coordinating with our presenters and hope to have a firm date in the next week or so.  The registration forms for that training session will go out in early April.  That training session also  lasts all day and we will offer CLE credit for the course.

Thank you for your support of the Council for Children’s Rights and please let me know if you have any questions.

Mary Schilli
mary@cfcrights.org
704-372-7961

Printed in: Mecklenburg Medicine

March 1, 2012

by: Mitch Feld, attorney at Council for Children’s Rights

March 1, 2012 – Council for Children’s Rights (CFCR) leads the Charlotte community to stand up for every child’s right to be safe, healthy and educated. Sandy Zeskind, Ph.D., Research Professor of Pediatrics at Levine Children’s Hospital approached CFCR several years ago about an innovative partnership with the Levine Children’s Hospital (LCH). He suggested that both groups could benefit from pediatric resident physicians spending time during their advocacy rotation at CFCR. Currently Zeskind works with Mitchell Feld, a CFCR defense attorney, to coordinate monthly activities for the residents to gain a broad exposure to all services and activities affecting children in Mecklenburg County.

Residents spend one month during their first or second year of residency at CFCR. Residents observe court hearings, attend Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings at Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS), attend the monthly Child Fatality Task Force meetings, meet with parents and children involved in custody disputes, assist in interviewing children at Charlotte’s various mental health facilities, and help CFCR staff understand complex medical records, diagnoses, and medication.

Read more here at Mecklenburg Medicine (go to Page 7)

Fr. Gregory Boyle, renowned author, speaker, business leader and Jesuit Priest inspired the audience to create positive alternatives for troubled youth by supporting the work of Council for Children’s Rights. Fr. Greg also shared his stories with local fifth and sixth grade students at Reid Park K-8 Wednesday morning.

Photo Courtesy of David Ramsey

In Fr. Greg’s first book, Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion, he shares his belief in universal kinship and redemption, told through the stories of various gang members and their experience in Los Angeles’ neighborhoods with the highest gang density west of the Mississippi. While the book itself was impactful, nothing compared to listening to Fr. Greg share his stories in person.  The audience was either silent and completely intent on listening to his message, or laughing because of one of his many stories.  In addition to Fr. Greg’s moving words, Deborah Whitfield (attorney and advocate for Council for Children’s Rights) and Barbara Wright (attorney and volunteer for Council for Children’s Rights) shared stories about children they serve in the Charlotte community.

Brett Loftis, Executive Director of Council for Children’s Rights, said “sharing Boyle’s message of unconditional love with the Charlotte community was vital. We must start creating a future for all of Charlotte’s children – we must foster a community spirit that ensures all children grow up safe, healthy and educated.”

Fr. Greg founded Homeboy Industries in 2001 to employ enemy gang members side by side. Today Boyle leads as Executive Director of Homeboy Industries over four distinct businesses, while at the same time providing vital services to help troubled youth succeed. Like Council for Children’s Rights, the goal of Homeboy Industries is to “enable young men and women to redirect their lives and provide them with hope for their futures.” Boyle asserts that there is no “them and us, only us.” His philosophy embodies what we all must believe if we want to help all children succeed.

In addition to his businesses, writing and speaking, Fr. Greg also serves as a consultant to youth services and governmental agencies, policy-makers and employers. He serves as a member of the National Gang Center Advisory Board (U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention), the Advisory Board for the Loyola Law School Center for Juvenile Law and Policy in Los Angeles, and the newly formed U.S. Attorney’s Defending Childhood Task Force.

If you were unable to join us for A Night for Children’s Rights this year, please sign up for our e-newsletter so you find out about next year’s exciting events.  Or feel free to contact Laura Maguire at lauram@cfcrights.org.

Sign up for our Email Newsletter

If passed into law, House Bill 1414, the Youth Accountability Act (referred to as Raise the Age) would raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction in North Carolina from 15 to 17 years old. North Carolina is the last state in the country to automatically charge, try, sentence, probate, and incarcerate youth in the adult criminal justice system. The Youth Accountability Act would require that 16 and 17 year olds be handled by the juvenile justice system.

Why is the Youth Accountability Act important?

The Youth Accountability Act is important for several reasons, ranging from the health and development of juveniles to the economic impact and cost of tax-payer dollars.

• Decision-making abilities, impulse control, and peer pressure of 16 and 17 year olds is muchlower than adults
• The juvenile justice system has more access to services than the criminal justice system
• Services include age-appropriate therapy, behavioral modification, employment skills training, education, guidance, tutoring, guided growth programs, and mentors
• Federal Bureau of Prisons reports a direct link between education and low recidivism rates
• Youth in the juvenile justice system who receive rehabilitative services are less likely to be rearrested, reconvicted, and reincarcerated compared to youth in the adult criminal justice system
• Youths in the adult criminal system do not have required parental notification
• Effective programs for youth have the highest net benefit

Important Statistics about Youth in North Carolina and Mecklenburg County

• In North Carolina, almost 86% of crimes committed by 16 and 17 year olds were misdemeanors; more than 28,000 youth misdemeanor cases were adjudicated in the adult system
• Last year there were 3,150 delinquent complaints in Mecklenburg County
• The delinquent rate for children age 6-15 is 25.67 per 1,000 youth in Mecklenburg County
• Last year, there were 719 detention center admissions in Mecklenburg County
• The average cost per youth for JCPC programs is $1,441.69

What is being done and how can you help?

• The Youth Accountability Task Force met for the first time in October of 2009 and continues to meet when the Task Force will make final recommendations to the legislature for the 2012 session
• The language of the bill mandates that the shift in juvenile jurisdiction be phased in slowly, with the first alteration to the current system (raising the age of juvenile jurisdiction to 16.5 years) becoming effective in June 2012 and the final change (adding 17 year olds) becoming effective in June 2015
• Advocate for the passage of the bill and continue to help our community prepare for the changes it entails
• Educate the community about the importance of investing in and protecting our children

Agenda:

PROGRAM & SPEAKERS

Registration (9:00-9:30am)

Light Breakfast provided

Introduction (9:30-9:45am)

What to Expect from a DV Client? (9:45-10:15am)

Pat Kelly, Coordinator, United Family Services Victim Assistance

Criminal DV Cases (10:15-10:45am)

Jamie Adams, ADA, District Attorney’s Office

Ethical Considerations of Representing Children in Domestic Violence Cases (10:45-11:45am)

Valerie Pearce, Attorney, Council For Children’s Rights

Civil DV Court Procedures (11:45-12:00pm)

Jeff White, Clerk, Mecklenburg County District Court

Lunch (12:00-12:30pm)

Lunch provided

View from the Bench (12:30-1:00pm)

The Honorable Rickye McKoy-Mitchell, District Court Judge, Mecklenburg County

The Honorable Ronald L. Chapman, District Court Judge, Mecklenburg County

The Honorable Tyyawdi M. Hands, District Court Judge, Mecklenburg County

Preparing for a Civil DV Case (1:00-2:00pm)

Kelly Durden, Staff Attorney, Legal Aid of North Carolina, Inc.

Break (2:00-2:15pm)

Going to Court for a Civil DV Case (2:15-3:15pm)

Faith Fickling, Staff Attorney, Legal Aid of North Carolina, Inc.

Questions & Answers (3:15-3:30pm)

Three local stories converged for me this week that may lighten your spirit and inspire you as the New Year starts. They did for me.

The first started at my hair stylist’s.

Charlie Clark, my hairdresser, is also president of a group of golfers – 40-plus in number – called the Par Busters. The Par Busters aren’t just a social club, they’re actively engaged in philanthropic and community efforts.

The Par Busters last year became involved in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ Reid Park Academy. For Thanksgiving and Christmas, they adopted five families with children attending the school – providing food, clothing and toys in partnership with the Care to Share Outreach Center. The men plan to become lunch buddies with the students, and the group is trying to set up a junior golf program there.

Why are they doing all this for Reid Park? “Our clubhouse is in the area,” Clark said, “and we wanted to help.”
On Tuesday night, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board heard about a lot of other people who want to help Reid Park.

They’re part of an extraordinary public-private venture called the Reid Park Collaborative Initiative. The initiative, a pilot project, will do something that I – and a lot of other people – have advocated for years: It will provide “a cohesive and accessible” range of services and resources that low-income and other at-risk students often desperately need to succeed.

It’s the kind of holistic approach to helping students in challenging circumstances that Geoffrey Canada and his much-touted Harlem Children’s Zone uses. It recognizes, as Reid Park principal Mary Sturge emphasized Tuesday, that an “effective teacher is not enough” to help all children reach their potential. It does indeed take a community.

Sturge noted that effective teachers have brought Reid Park a long way. The high-poverty school that became one of CMS’s pre-kindergarten through eighth grade schools this year has gone from 18 percent of students performing on grade level to 51 percent during Sturge’s tenure. But to make further progress, more is required, she said.

So last February, planning began on a model to do more. What has emerged is a program to provide wraparound services for 150 of the school’s 800 or so students – those most in need – and their families. It involves a range of partner agencies including the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services, the Council for Children’s Rights and Communities in Schools. It also involves support from myriad volunteers and nonprofits. In all, 50 to 60 agencies and groups have committed to provide a “system of care” framework of support to meet the academic, emotional and physical needs of students and their families.

The system aims to maximize the involvement of all the people who know and care for a child, and the volunteers who are already helping. It also emphasizes what successful models of educating children continue to show – the need for coordinated, community-wide strategies.

It also highlights this – that “philanthropic” efforts to address needs don’t have to involve people with large amounts of money. That’s something I heard again on Wednesday at a YWCA breakfast meeting discussing a new local book, “Giving Back: A Tribute to Generations of African American Philanthropists.”

A panel of givers at the Y breakfast highlighted the breadth and depth of such giving. It included people of means such as attorney Rob Harrington and retired educator Jeanne Brayboy, but also a young entrepreneur, Rashad Davis, founding member of the New Generation of African American Philanthropists giving circle, and 18-year-old college student Olivia Stinson, founder of PEN Pals Book Club, a support group for children with incarcerated parents – an idea that grew out of her church’s Christmas giving to children with incarcerated parents. Astoundingly she started that effort at age 14.

Author Valaida Fullwood said she wrote the already nationally praised book (the Light Factory’s Charles W. Thomas took the photos) to honor philanthropy that doesn’t often get recognized and to inspire more people to embrace philanthropy. Communities benefit from it, she said.

They do. Charlotte is “rich” with givers. But more are needed. This year, become a philanthropist too.

Copyright 2012 . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Fannie Flono is an Observer associate editor. E-mail: fflono@charlotteobserver.com.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/01/13/2922313/try-being-a-philanthropist-this.html#storylink=cpy