By Amy Cherry

Daily Press Staff

During the recent Children’s Reach and Risk Assessment Forum, sponsored in part by Northern Tier Community Action, information was presented regarding statewide children’s services.

The regional event was sponsored by the Community Engagement Groups of Cameron, Clarion, Clearfield, Elk, Forest, Jefferson, McKean, Potter and Warren counties.

These regional engagement groups are funded by the PA Department of Public Welfare’s Office of Child Development and Early Learning (OCDEL) in an effort to coordinate local efforts to promote early education for all children and advocate for supporting all children’s success.

As part of the nine counties represented at the forum, their services reach 18,040 children age five and under. More than 8,000 or 45.9 percent of those children live in low-income households.

“These children’s families are facing serious economic difficulty,” said featured speaker Darlene Kovacs, a Mercyhurst College professor and Vice President of early childhood regional services.

Among the statistics presented included; children in 69 percent of counties are at moderately high or high risk of school failure and 38 percent of children under age 5 participate in a federal or state funded quality children’s program.

The investment in children’s services range from a nationwide average of $8,700 which is spent on quality education per child for five hours a day, 180 days a year.

Pennsylvania’s average cost for the same services stands at  $2,722. Within the nine-county area of forum attendees, that same average stands at $3,761.

Kovacs noted that state-funded programs matter because they help children acquire early learning skills which lead to greater success in school, cost taxpayers less money and over time are less likely to repeat a grade, require special education services, become pregnant in their teens and be arrested as a juvenile.

As far as funding is concerned, Kovacs said by educating children effectively and efficiently this will contribute to them becoming resourceful employees, while parents in turn also become productive employees as they concentrate better at their job knowing their children are in quality care.

“Every dollar put into the economy ends up producing $2.13. In turn local child care programs will do their purchasing within a local environment,” Kovacs said.