In fact, several studies show that socio-economic status is a better predictor for risk than either race or ethnicity, said Rachel Weintraub, CFA’s Legislative director and product safety expert, noting that the death rates for motor vehicle accidents, fires, and drownings are at least double among lower-income children. Low-income children are also more likely to suffer from non-fatal injuries.

Elevated injury rates are related to a litany of factors, said Weintraub, pointing to both environmental determinants—hazardous streets, unsafe playgrounds, older and less safe houses and appliances—and human ones—higher incidence of smoking, less income to avoid safety precautions, less parental supervision in single-parent families and less knowledge about product safety and prevention.

In addition to enhanced awareness and education outreach, the key to reducing injury rates and saving lives comes from better data reporting and tracking, said Gus Schaefer, Senior Vice President and Public Safety Officer at Underwriters Laboratories Inc., who helped fund the report. Better data is needed on the relationship between family income and these incidents, in order to more fully understand the risks and help policymakers address them, the report concluded.

To show support for the food stamps program as the bill moves to the House floor, a number of Members of Congress are taking the SNAP Challenge from June 12th – June 19th. It consists of eating and drinking for the entire week on a total of $31.50, which is what the average food stamp recipient receives in benefits.

Several Voices staff also took the SNAP Challenge on Wednesday, June 12, 2013 to show support for the program and to recognize the nutritional and financial challenges experienced by food stamp recipients nationwide. Our collective experiences during the challenge proved to be very personal for us. Below are synopses of three staff members who agreed to share their experiences.

Matthew Wright, Voices’ Senior Director of Government Affairs and Policy for Health, participated in the SNAP Challenge to stand with those who rely on food stamps. Matthew recognized that he was privileged in choosing to limit his food options for ONE day. Unfortunately many food stamp recipients don’t have that choice EVERY day. He went to Whole Foods Market and purchased three bananas, one apple, a one pound bag of peeled carrots, and a can on garbanzo beans. Although many food stamp recipients don’t live near a Whole Foods Market or another healthy foods store, he wanted to see what a SNAP recipient who had access to a store like Whole Foods could buy for $4.50 total for the day. Matthew posted a video of his supermarket experience and pictures of his Whole Foods receipt and food for the day on his Twitter account, @WrightforKids.

Terrylynn Tyrell, Voices’ Senior Director of Government Affairs and Policy, decided to participate in the SNAP Challenge to support children and families who have minimum food budgets. For the day, she only drank water and ate one nectarine and a salad. Terrylynn was quite hungry and craved sugar and salt by evening time. She also found it difficult to concentrate near the end of the day. She witnessed first-hand that the most nutritious, safe and quite frankly delicious foods were the most expensive. Through her SNAP Challenge experience, Terrylynn noticed that food in low-income neighborhoods often is in worse condition than the food in higher income neighborhoods – particularly when the stores are run by the same chain. She posted about her experience to her Twitter account, @TyrellforKids.

Marlo Nash, Voices’ Vice President for Membership, found a big difference between buying groceries on a self-imposed budget that has the flexibility to allow for splurges, respond to cravings, buy ingredients for a specific recipe and choose items that are family favorites versus nervously calculating every item to make sure that nutritional needs are balanced against a very small, finite budget. In order to include less filling, but essential, fruits and vegetables, she chose inexpensive items that had bulk that were also high in sodium and fat to try to stave off hunger pains. Marlo felt light-headed during the work day, and as a result, became concerned whether she could meet expectations on the job. She learned that it takes energy, focus, knowledge and mettle to keep your family healthy and fed on a budget that simply doesn’t cover the cost of a nutritionally-balanced diet. Marlo posted about her experience to her Twitter account, @MarloforKids.

Voices believes Congress must enact a farm policy bill which is least detrimental to those who rely on food stamps each day. It is the source of funding for nearly 21 million children in this country who receive food stamp benefits, and the cuts proposed by both the Senate and House will adversely affect many low-income children and their families. A parent shouldn’t be forced to decide between feeding their child or paying the electric bill.

A recent report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities revealed that cuts to SNAP will eliminate two million people from the program or four percent of enrollment, many of them children. Further, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 210,000 children will lose access to free school meals tied to their SNAP eligibility if the current version of the House bill becomes law. A hungry child is less likely to perform well in school, and SNAP is a critical federal investment in our nation’s children and the future of this country.

While legislators debate whether new taxes should foot the bill, others look for innovative solutions in cross-sector partnerships. On June 13, the nation’s first ever results-based financing vehicle to expand access to early childhood education for at-risk children was announced at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in Chicago. Investors Goldman Sachs and J.B. Pritzker have committed $7 million through a social impact bond in Utah, where one school district’s locally-designed, structured preschool curriculum for at-risk students has significantly reduced the need for special education and remedial services in elementary school.

A longitudinal study conducted between 2006 and 2009 showed that 33 percent of low-income students in the school district would likely have needed special education services, but after participating in the program, 95 percent no long required remedial services—saving the state more than $2,500 per year per student, and giving kids the leg-up they need to be prepared for kindergarten, close the achievement gap, and stay on track to complete high school. The only problem is that the program does not have the resources to accommodate all the children who sorely need that boost.

Intermediated by the United Way of Salt Lake (UWSL), this proof-of-concept transaction, which is set to benefit up to 3,700 children over the next several years, is the result of a phenomenal multi-year partnership between UWSL, our member organization Voices for Utah Children and the Granite School District. “We are very excited to be a part of this innovative strategy and hope that it will help move preschool legislation in the 2014 Utah legislative session,” said Karen Crompton, President and CEO at Voices for Utah Children. In the meantime, Karen and Senior Policy Analyst Janis Dubno—a former investment banker who conceived of the transaction to shift resources to prevention—will be sharing their expertise.

Crompton is set to present at the Early Childhood Social Impact Finance: Possibilities and Challengesconference in D.C. later this month, while Dubno, who represented Voices at the meetings in Chicago, will be traveling to a conference in Italy to present the paper she co-authored for ReadyNation, Financing Human Capital Development for Economically Disadvantaged Children: Applying Pay for Success Social Impact Finance to Early Child Development.

Defined as any unwanted sexual activity between youth and all sexual activity between youth and adult staff, the overall rate of sexual victimization has declined since 2009, but these unsettling figures still represent more than 1,800 affected youth. Of these, three quarters reported incidents involving staff, suggesting a staff-on-inmate abuse rate “about three times higher than what we find in the adult arena”, according to the report’s author, Allen Beck.

Nearly half of those victimized by staff— roughly 3.5 percent of all juvenile inmates—reported forcible contact or coercion, including promises of drugs and alcohol in exchange for sexual conduct.

Nickelodeon’s decisions on what products are permitted to be advertised through its network have an impact on our children’s diets and long-term health prospects. As the senators accurately noted in their letter, food marketing is a contributing factor to the childhood obesity epidemic. A 2006 Institute of Medicine report requested by Congress found that television advertisements influenced children’s food and beverage preferences and the requests they make to their parents.

According to a 2010 report by the Yale University Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, Nickelodeon airs a quarter of the total food advertisements which are viewed by children under age 12. In 2012, the Center for Science in the Public Interest found that 69 percent of foods advertised on Nickelodeon were of poor nutritional quality, including fast foods, sugary cereals, and sweet snacks.

Voices once again urges Nickelodeon and its parent company, Viacom, to no longer accept advertisements for unhealthy foods on television, radio, and websites directed at children. The Walt Disney Corporation took this important step last year and has found success in focusing its food marketing on healthy foods that contribute to the health and fitness of their viewership. We believe Nickelodeon can and should do the same.

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But it’s not all bad news—the budget request of $3.1 billion actually represents a 6.7 percent increase over FY12 and the Department of Education, the agency identified as the lead for K-12 instruction, would see a nearly 54 percent budget increase. Meant to address key priorities in the Committee on STEM Education’s new five year strategic plan, this includes $150 million for STEM Innovation Networks—strategic partnerships between school districts, universities, government agencies, industry, museums and other relevant entities—and $80 million to support evidence based STEM teacher preparation programs (See Why We Need More Qualified STEM Teachers) .

Witness Leland D. Melvin, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Administration, noted that NASA supports the President’s goal of using their resources to achieve improvements in STEM education and instruction. “The current educational pathways are not leading to a sufficiently large and well-trained STEM force,” Melvin said. “The education system is not cultivating a culture of STEM necessary for a STEM literate public.”

Indeed, America lags behind many other nations when it comes to STEM education, Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) acknowledged in his opening statement. America ranks 23rd in math and 31st in science, “not the record of a country that expects to remain a world leader,” Smith said.

Still legislators questioned how programs were selected for elimination and whether the outside community was part of the process and expressed doubt concerning the lead agencies’ capability of taking on new responsibilities. All agreed, though, that improvements are necessary.

Click here to read opening statements and full witness testimonies.

Voices expressed its concerns about these proposed congressional cuts to SNAP in two recent blog posts. But we were equally dismayed by an opinion column from Charles Lane published in The Washington Post entitled, “Munchies instead of meals.” In his opinion piece, Mr. Lane argued that taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to subsidize unhealthy food and beverage purchases with SNAP benefits. He included recommendations from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine to limit SNAP purchases to whole grains; fresh, frozen or low-sodium canned vegetables; beans; and fruits.

Unfortunately, living in an ideal world is different than reality. There is a significant reason why millions of low-income families have no choice but to spend their SNAP benefits on less-than-nutritious foods and beverages: food deserts. Often, SNAP recipients – many of whom live in food deserts – have fewer food and beverage selection options than most of the people who read Mr. Lane’s opinion pieces.

Food deserts are geographic areas where residents’ access to affordable, healthy food options (especially fresh fruits and vegetables) is restricted or nonexistent due to the absence of grocery stores within convenient travelling distances. The Food Empowerment Project notes that access to public transportation in urban areas may help residents overcome the difficulties posed by distance, but economic forces have driven grocery stores out of many cities in recent years, making them so few and far between that an individual’s food shopping trip may require taking several buses or trains. And in suburban and rural areas, public transportation is either very limited or unavailable, with supermarkets often many miles away from people’s homes. According to a report prepared for Congress by the Economic Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about 2.3 million people (or 2.2 percent of all U.S. households) live more than one mile away from a supermarket and do not own a car.

The other defining characteristic of food deserts is socio-economic: that is, they are most commonly found in communities of color and low-income areas where many people don’t have cars. Studies have found that wealthy districts have three times as many supermarkets as poor ones do, that white neighborhoods contain an average of four times as many supermarkets as predominantly black ones do, and that grocery stores in African-American communities are usually smaller with fewer selections.

Matthew Wright, Voices’ Senior Director of Government Affairs and Policy for Health, personally wrote to Mr. Lane with information about how food deserts impact the nutritional choices made by SNAP recipients. He asked Mr. Lane to publish a follow-up opinion piece which addresses food deserts, including how they impact SNAP recipients and policies that should be implemented to eliminate food deserts. But so far, Mr. Lane has failed to respond.

You’re encouraged to write to Charles Lane at lanec@washpost.com and ask him to respond. Additionally, Voices encourages you to sign an online petition encouraging Congress to support SNAP!

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The Department of Health and Human Services estimates that just seven percent of youth who need mental health services receive appropriate help from mental health professionals. Countless other children and youth bear the brunt of the mental health challenges faced by their parents and caregivers, the vast majority of whom are never treated due to stigma or inability to access care. This underscores the need for implementation and enforcement of legislation like the 2010 Affordable Care Act, which has provisions requiring health insurers to cover mental health services as an essential benefit.

Also needed is an overall shift in American attitudes towards mental health, an issue which President Obama addressed on June 3, when the White House hosted a National Conference on Mental Health. “There should be no shame in discussing or seeking help for treatable illnesses,” the President said, announcing a series of public-private partnerships designed to increase discussion and awareness around mental illness.

In addition to a public service announcement campaign headed by the National Association of Broadcasters, which will include a wave of youth-oriented public service announcements on MTV, the initiative encourages high school principals to hold assemblies on the topic, and the American Medical Association is working to incorporate mental health screenings in to their practices. A new website, MentalHealth.gov, is also meant to educate, guide and incite discussion on mental health and related challenges.

On June 4, Voices and more than 50 national and state-based advocacy organizations submitted a letter to Senate Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell, expressing support for the Mental Health Awareness and Improvement Act (S. 689), and asking for a final Senate floor vote to be scheduled for this legislation. This act addresses many unmet mental health needs of our children and youth with several provisions that reauthorize already existing federal programs and new efforts to support programs and provide services through schools, college campuses, hospitals, and other community environments.

Across the country, early-grade reading proficiency continues to be unacceptably low, especially among students from low-income families and children of color. Third grade reading proficiency is not only a key indicator of high school graduation rates, but also a barometer of our future workforce’s health and viability in a global marketplace, according to Governor Phil Bryant (R-MS), one of three Governors on hand to spotlight efforts undertaken to increase reading proficiency in their home states.

From frequent, individualized assessment to enhancing teacher training and professional development to a more holistic, community approach, there is no single answer—no silver bullet—to guarantee success, especially when there are extenuating circumstances at play. But the bottom line is that there can be no more excuses for letting our children fall behind, Governor Susana Martinez (R-NM) stated.

A panel of state superintendents agreed. It is not children’s fault that they are born into the circumstances they are born into Randy Dorn, Superintendent of Public Instruction in Washington State, asserted. And it is not acceptable to allow circumstances to dictate access to opportunity and success.

As Governor Markell (D-DE) pointed out, you can’t fix third grade literacy by focusing only on third graders—Learning is a cumulative process and early grade reading proficiency starts with quality early child care and education. We must ensure universal access to affordable quality early child care and education, because our children deserve much more than mediocrity.

Click here for video highlights from the forum.

Governors from around the country, both Democrats and Republicans, have made early learning a priority. President Obama has proposed significant investments in early learning that will provide high quality Pre-K for all, starting with children from low- to moderate-income families.

Voices supports Strong Start for Children and encourages you to join the Day of Action on June 5: blog and tweet to support early learning. See sample tweets developed by Voices. Use the hash tag #PreKForAll . Join the National Women’s Law Center all day blog carnival and Tweetchat from 2 to 3 p.m.

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