Trends affecting children and families in the territory have improved over the past 10 years, according to the most recent Kids Count data, but the statistics released Thursday by the Community Foundation of the Virgin Islands show there are still risks that the community should not ignore.
Titled “Pause for Review,” the 2013 Kids Count book compares and contrasts data collected from 1990 to 2010 but, according to CFVI officials, does not include statistics relating to events from the past three years, when the the local economy was in the process of recovering from the global economic downturn.
One of the key findings in the book, for example, is that there was a slight decrease in the poverty rate for families with children, going from a high of 35 percent in 2000 to 25 percent by 2010. However, major events such as the closing of the Hovensa refinery on St. Croix and the global economic downturn could impact the numbers in the next report, CFVI President Dee Baecher-Brown said after members of the organization presented the book Thursday at a meeting of the Governor’s Children and Families Council.
Baecher-Brown said the data book shows that the territory does have “significant” improvements to make, but the data can help the local community understand and use “what works to make a real and meaningful impact here in our community.”
Kids Count is funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation.
This year’s data book also shows that the percentage of children living in poverty dropped from a high in 2000 of 47 percent to a low of 31 percent in 2010, but a high percentage of those households are still headed by single mothers.
“In 2010 three quarters, or 75 percent, of all impoverished families with children were headed by single females, a far larger portion than in 1990 when single-female families with children represented less than two-thirds (or 63 percent) overall,” according to the data.
On the positive side, the data also show a corresponding increase in income for residents and families living in the territory from 2001 to 2010, jumping to an average of $37,254. The increase can be attributed to general economic improvement and the shift to more women entering the workforce.
But the data also show the increase in income could be attributed to a drop in the number of V.I. families.
“In 2010, the were 10 percent fewer families with children compared to 1990,” according to the Kids Count book. “Family size had become smaller, too, including fewer children and, increasingly, a single parent. Between 1990 and 2010, the V.I. child population also lowered by 24 percent. Out-migration of families, women’s rising educational levels, greater use of birth control, and the increase of single parenthood may all have contributed.”
Going back to the positive, the data also showed “relatively low death risks” for infants and children. By 2010, the territory’s infant mortality rate was 54 percent lower than what was recorded in 1990. The U.S. Virgin Islands actually has a slight edge over the United States, where the infant mortality rate was six out of every 1,000 infants.
The picture from 1990 to 2010 was bleaker for juveniles and teens, however.
“Since 1990, the Virgin Islands’ distressingly high rates of arrests for juvenile violent crimes (homicide, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) and of teen deaths have generally been between two to three times higher than in the rest of the nation,” according to the book.
Juvenile arrests for violent crimes increased 98 percent between 1997 and 2011, from 310 out of 100,000 youth in 1997 to 614 out of 100,000 youth in 2011, while teen deaths averaged nine a year from 2000 to 2010.
CFVI officials also stressed the importance of early childhood education, saying that 27 percent of three and four year olds were not enrolled in any kind of preschool in 2010. Children that have had preschool experience are developmentally more ready for kindergarten, showing better “cognitive outcomes, social skills and higher school achievement than those that do not attend preschool,” according to the book.
According to the Kids Count data: 34 percent of children entering public kindergarten lacked age appropriate cognitive skills; 50 percent lacked age-appropriate word and comprehension skills; and 320 teens, or seven percent of teens ages 15-17, were not in school in 2010, as compared to the national average of four percent.
