Meet the Filmmakers of Finding North, a Documentary about Hunger in America

A new documentary about hunger in America called “Finding North" was screened at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT, and received excellent reviews from The Los Angeles Times and Variety Magazine. The film shows several families in the United States struggling with food insecurity, demonstrating the extensive reach of hunger in America. I had a chance to interview the film's two directors, Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush, and asked them about their inspiration and what they learned about the complexities of hunger. Read their responses below, and watch the film trailer for a sneak peak at this exciting new documentary. 

(From Bread for the World Blog at:

blog.bread.org/2012/03/meet-the-filmmakers-of-finding-north-a-documentary-about-hunger-in-america.html

Or view the trailer below:

Gov. Rick Snyder aims to stop truancy; cut welfare if children skip school

It's a question city leaders have grappled with for decades, how to keep youths off the streets and away from lives of crime.

Gov. Rick Snyder proposed his answer Wednesday while discussing public safety (in Flint).  Let's get kids back in the classroom, Snyder said.


The governor proposed a program to stop truancy in public schools, calling on the Michigan Department of Human Services to put more social workers in public elementary schools in Flint, Detroit, Pontiac and Saginaw.
"I also call on DHS to require regular school attendance as a condition for eligibility for temporary cash assistance," Snyder said.

Current policy only requires school attendance for children ages 16-18 to be eligible for cash assistance to parents, he said.

"There's nothing that says, if you're 8 years old, you have to go to school," he said. "How dumb is that?"

www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2012/03/gov_rick_snyder_aims_to_stop_t.html

Growing Gaps Bring Focus on Poverty's Role in Schooling

The fractious debate over how much schools can counteract poverty's impact on children is far from settled, but a recently published collection of research strongly suggests that until policymakers and educators confront deepening economic and social disparities, poor children will increasingly miss out on finding a path to upward social mobility.

The achievement gap between poor children and rich children has grown significantly over the past three decades and is now nearly twice as large as the black-white gap, according to Sean F. Reardon, a Stanford University sociologist. He examined data on family income and student scores on standardized tests in reading and math spanning 1960 to 2007.

As the income gap has grown, so too has the disparity in how much money and time affluent parents invest in the development of their young children compared with such efforts by low-income parents. For example, between birth and age 6, children from high-income families now spend an average of 1,300 more hours in "novel" places outside their homes, schools, and day-care centers than children from poor families, a trend documented by Meredith Phillips, an associate professor of public policy and sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/03/07/23poverty_ep.h31.html

Great Start collecting used, new children’s books

In honor of National Reading Month, the Berrien County Great Start Parent Coalition is collecting gently used and new children’s books Monday through April 9.

Drop boxes can be found at Chemical Bank locations in Berrien County, as well as the Volunteer Center of Southwest Michigan offices in St. Joseph and Niles.  The books collected will be donated to various literacy programs throughout Berrien County, including the Benton Harbor Sunrise Rotary’s Red Wagon Program.

“Reading aloud with children is known to be the single most important activity for building the knowledge and skills they will eventually require for learning to read,” Marilyn Jager Adams, internationally known for her work with cognition and education said. “Early literacy has also shown to have a significant impact on the reduction of generational poverty.

 www.nilesstar.com/2012/03/05/great-start-collecting-used-new-childrens-books/

Middle schoolers (in Battle Creek) learn the impact of service at Community Action Warehouse

As she hoisted canned food into the cart of an elderly woman this afternoon, 12-year-old Elizabeth Calderon said she’d learned something new about her community.

“There are lots of people in need that we need to help out,” the Northwestern Middle School sixth-grader said.  But she also learned this: “It’s great helping people out.”


That’s exactly what Melissa Hatmaker said she wants to hear.


Calderon and 19 of her classmates were at the Community Action warehouse today as part of a service learning project organized by Hatmaker, a sixth-grade math teacher at Northwestern. Hatmaker said she started the project this school year to expose students to volunteerism and show them they can make a difference.

www.battlecreekenquirer.com/article/20120228/NEWS01/302280032/Middle-schoolers-learn-impact-service

Kalamazoo County & KRESA Discuss Future of Head Start

Discussions are under way about the possibility of moving administration of Kalamazoo County Head Start, which has come under increased federal scrutiny, from the county government to the Kalamazoo Regional Educational Service Agency.

If the change is made, it could have significant implications for Head Start's 96 employees and for the 600-some families served by the program.

Kalamazoo County Head Start provides preschool and health services for 626 3- and 4-year-olds living in households with incomes below the poverty line. It is the county's largest and best-funded preschool program.

KRESA, which provides a variety of support services and specialized programs for Kalamazoo County schools and students, has expressed interest in running Head Start...

...The future of Kalamazoo County Head Start will be the topic of a "community conversation" from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at the Kalamazoo Public Library, 315 S. Rose. The event is open to the public. It is being organized by the Great Start Collaborative, which is based at KRESA.

www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2012/02/administration_of_kalamazoo_co.html

More than 1.4 million U.S. families live on $2 a day per person

The number of fam­i­lies living on $2 or less per per­son per day for at least a month in the USA has more than dou­bled in 15 years to 1.46 million.

That's up from 636,000 house­holds in 1996, says a new study re­leased by research­ers at the Uni­versity of Michigan and Harvard Uni­versity.


Govern­ment ben­efits blunt the impact of such extreme poverty, but not completely, says one of the research­ers, Luke Shaefer, a pro­fessor of social work at Michigan.

When food stamps are included as income, the number of house­holds in extreme poverty, de­fined as living on $2 a day, drops to 800,000, Shaefer says. That's up from 475,000 in 1996.

www.ongo.com/v/3421606/159/D249B350DDC38EC8/more-than-14-million-families-live-on-2-a-day-per-person

The Neglect of Mental Illness Exacts a Huge Toll, Human and Economic

Mental health care is one of the biggest unmet needs of our time.  Nearly one in two people in the U.S. will suffer from depression, anxiety disorders or another mental health ailment at some point in their life, and about one in 17 Americans currently has a serious mental illness. Young people are especially prone to these troubles. Yet millions of people living with these conditions do not receive the care they require. In recent years the health system and state and federal governments have taken steps to right that wrong. Progress has been slow, and budget cuts and legal wrangling have now put many of these measures at risk. Doctors, insurers and politicians need to pick up the pace.

Mental illness strikes without regard for economic class, but the strain is acute for people with low incomes. About one in six adults living at just above the poverty line or lower has severe mental health problems. Without access to affordable treatment, many have a hard time holding down a job yet do not qualify as formally disabled, thus leaving them locked out from insurance coverage.  A recent large study in California found that only 32 percent of uninsured residents with mental illnesses received any treatment at all and that less than 12 percent got adequate help.

 www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=a-neglect-of-mental-illness

All mental health disorders should get insurance coverage, not just autism, coalition says

Legislation that would require insurers to cover autism treatments unfairly singles out one condition, says a coalition that wants coverage for all mental health issues.

Gov. Rick Snyder, who backs the autism legislation, and lawmakers are being urged today to adopt a state law that would improve insurance coverage for all neuropsychiatric disorders, including mental illness, addiction, autism and developmental disorders.

“Autism certainly ought to be covered. That’s not the argument,” said Michael Reagan, external relations officer of Cherry Street Health Services in Grand Rapids. “There are other neuropsychiatric disorders that can be just as debilitating and cause just as much of a problem as autism.”

“The governor and Senate leaders have announced a course that is discriminatory, stigmatizing, and problematic for the state,” said Mark Reinstein, president of the Mental Health Association in Michigan. He said the coalition supports a bill introduced by state Sen. Rebekah Warren, D-Ann Arbor, which assures equal coverage for all neuropsychiatric disorders when employers choose to include behavioral health coverage in their policies.

Michigan is one of only seven states that does not have parity legislation requiring insurers to provide the same coverage for mental disorders as for physical illness, says Michigan Partners for Parity, a coalition of 60 organizations.

www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/02/all_mental_health_disorders_sh.html

Mentally ill go it alone Most won't seek help, but those who do should try therapy first

A majority of Americans with mental disorders did not receive professional help in 2010, according to a major government study.

Although about 20 percent of American adults (45.9 million) reported any mental illness in 2010, only 39.2 percent of that group said they got treatment, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration report shows.


Mental illness is defined as having had “a diagnosable mental, behavioral or emotional disorder,” such as anxiety disorders or obsessive-compulsive disorders.


“People might be afraid they can’t do anything about it and don’t seek help,” says Peter Delany, director of the substance abuse and mental health administration’s center for statistics. “But if we take the view that mental health disorders are like physical health disorders, like diabetes or heart disease, we’d find treatment is
effective. People are going to get better.”

www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20120222/LIFE/302220019/Survey-Mentally-ill-go-alone