Addressing Sadness and Trauma (English and Spanish) Resources for Parents, Educators and Caregivers from Child Trends

Friends,

Came across this list of resources in English and Spanish for parents, educators, and caregivers in the wake of last week's traumatic events in Uvalde that I'm happy to share.

Peace/paz,

-Angela Valenzuela

As we shared on Twitter last week, Child Trends staff are saddened and angered by the shooting in Uvalde, Texas. We believe that every child deserves to be safe from school violence and the fear that they will experience it. Our colleagues at the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families collated  a list of resources to help parents, caregivers, and educators support children and youth after a school shooting, which we're sharing with you. Each resource is available in both English and Spanish. Please forward this list to anyone you know who might find such supports helpful. 

Resources for Parents and Caregivers

• Parent Guidelines for Helping Youth After the Recent Shooting
• Guía Para Los Padres Para Ayudar A Los Jóvenes Después De Un Tiroteo Reciente

• Helping Teens with Traumatic Grief: Tips for Caregivers
• Ayuda Para Los Adolescentes Con Duelo Traumático

• After a Crisis: Helping Young Children Heal
• Después De Una Crisis: Cómo Sanan A Los Niños

• Helping Your Children Manage Distress in the Aftermath of a Shooting
• Cómo Ayudar A Sus Hijos Tras Los Tiroteos En Los Centros De Educación

• Age-Related Reactions to a Traumatic Event
• Reacciones A Eventos Traumaticos Relacionadas Con La Edad

Resources for Educators

• Helping Youth After Community Trauma: Tips for Educators
• Ayuda Para Jóvenes Después De Un Trauma Comunitario

General Resources

• Helping Children Cope After a Traumatic Event
• Cómo ayudar a los niños a lidiar con un evento traumático

• Helping Children Cope with Grief
• Cómo ayudar a los niños a enfrentar el duelo

• Quick Guide to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Guía rápida sobre el trastorno de estrés postraumático

• Managing your distress in the aftermath of a shooting
• Manejando tú angustia después de los tiroteos

In America, a Child is Shot Every Hour, and Hundreds Die. Here are 13 Young Lives Lost in 2021

Read this and cry. I'm posting this piece from today's Washington Post not because I didn't think we had a crisis, but rather because I suspect that you, like me, don't know that children's deaths due to gun violence are THIS frequent. 

I can only imagine just how difficult it was for Cox, Davies, Johnson and Thebault to research and write this news story. However painful, without question, these stories must be told and heard lest their deaths—lives cut tragically short—be in vain. 

From a policy perspective, without this level of awareness, we're driving blindly. It's beyond sad that our country cares more about guns than gun violence. 

-Angela Valenzuela

In America, a Child is Shot Every Hour, and Hundreds Die. Here are 13 Young Lives Lost in 2021 

The country’s gun violence epidemic is
killing more children than ever. Who they
were matters just as much as how they died.

By John Woodrow Cox

, 

Emily Davies

, 

Lizzie Johnson

 and 

Reis Thebault

  | Washington Post

Jan. 12, 2022

The sisters in Ohio, both in elementary school, were shot by their father. The boy in Texas was shot at home by someone in a passing a car. The ninth-grader in Arkansas was shot at school by a friend. The girl in Kansas was shot by a toddler, who didn’t mean to do it. The teenager in South Carolina shot himself, but he did mean to do it.

All of them were killed in an epidemic unique to the United States, where, on average, at least one child is shot every hour of every day. Many survive, but many others do not. In the nation’s capital, nine children were killed in gun homicides last year. In Los Angeles, 11 were fatally shot. In Philadelphia: 36. In Chicago: 59. Those figures don’t include the hundreds of other kids who died in accidental shootings and by suicide.

Just how many were taken by gun violence last year will remain unknown until the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention releases its data months from now. But in 2020, the number exceeded 2,200 — by far the highest total in the past two decades — and 2021′s tally is expected to be worse.

The children featured below are broadly representative of those killed every year in America. Even babies are shot to death, but the vast majority of young victims are teenagers. Black kids are more than four times as likely to die in shootings as White ones, according to CDC data, though White kids are much more likely to use guns to take their own lives.

Often, children killed by bullets are memorialized only by brief news reports or anguished obituaries. But the way they lived matters as much as the way they died.

The 13 children profiled here were funny: the 6-year-old who wanted to be a doctor so she could give shots to all the doctors who had given her shots. They were generous: the 12-year-old who used his chore money to take his family out to McDonald’s. And they were ambitious: the 15-year-old who wanted to be a nuclear physicist.

These are their stories, one for each month of a violent year.

Click on a child to read their story

Happy Hispanic Heritage Month, everybody! A way to think about this is if we can get education right for this demographic, we can get it right for our nation. We are nowhere near at a loss for knowing what must be done. Quite the opposite. 

We have decades of research on "what works" for Latino/a/x children and other children of color. This issue is not evidence, but politics. Our communities must redouble their efforts to advocate for quality bilingual and dual language programs, adequate school funding, Ethnic Studies, culturally relevant and sustaining curricula, teachers that are prepared to teach this demographic, tutorial supports, community schools, parent engagement initiatives, university-district partnerships, grow your own educator programs, eliminating high-stakes testing and implementing authentic forms of assessment that promote deep learning, and so on. Higher education is also part and parcel to this narrative. We totally know what must be done.

If you're in Texas, let's also protect Trans Kids of all races and ethnicities. Equality Texas has been doing the heavy lift on this and more need to be involved. It's shocking to learn that the Texas State Legislature currently has at least 70 anti-transgender bills—and growing!  We need to oppose these anti-children and anti-family bills. Our kids are already traumatized by all this venomous hatred and distortion. Here's how to get involved at the Texas State Capitol: https://www.equalitytexas.org/get-involved-at-the-capitol/

Here is an excellent state-by-state breakdown provided by Child Trends of the Latina/o/x student population.

-Angela Valenzuela

Sep 15, 2021

HISPANIC FAMILY FACTS

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Latino Children Represent Over a Quarter of the Child Population Nationwide and Make Up at Least 40 Percent in 5 Southwestern States

by Yiyu Chen & Lina Guzman | Child Trends

Latinoa children (ages 18 and under) numbered 18.6 million in 2019, making up 26 percent of the nation’s total child population. While Latino children disproportionately reside in the Southwest, they comprise a sizeable share of the child population in all 50 states—and at least 25 percent of the child population in 12 states.

The percentage of states’ total child population that is Latino ranges from 2 percent in Vermont to 61 percent in New Mexico. Latino children account for roughly half of the state’s total child population in 3 states in the Southwest—New Mexico, California, and Texas—and exceed 40 percent of the child population in 2 other Southwestern states—Nevada and Arizona. Outside the Southwest, Latino children now account for 25 percent to nearly 40 percent of the child population in 7 states (Florida, Colorado, New Jersey, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Illinois), 10 percent to nearly 25 percent in 22 states (Oregon, Washington, Massachusetts, Kansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Utah, Nebraska, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Delaware, Maryland, Georgia, Wyoming, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa, Tennessee, Alaska) and the District of Columbia, and less than 10 percent in 16 states (South Carolina, Minnesota, Michigan, Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, Ohio, Kentucky, South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana, Mississippi, Maine, West Virginia, Vermont).b

In terms of total population of Latino children by state, California, Texas, Florida, and New York each have more than 1 million young Latino residents—4.6 million in California, 3.7 million in Texas, 1.4 million in Florida, and just over 1 million in New York. Arizona, Illinois, and New Jersey (in order of population) have the next-highest Latino child populations, ranging from roughly 500,000 to 750,000. Around 200,000 to 400,000 Latino children live in Colorado, North Carolina, Georgia, Washington, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Nevada, Virginia, Massachusetts, and Maryland (also ordered by population). Latino children also have a substantial and growing presence in several Midwestern states: Roughly 180,000 Latino children live in Michigan and Indiana, and just over 160,000 Latino children live in Ohio.

FOOTNOTES

a We use “Hispanic” and “Latino” interchangeably. Consistent with the U.S. Census definition, this includes individuals who have origins in Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Cuba, as well as other “Hispanic, Latino or Spanish” origins.

b All lists of states in this paragraph are ordered by percentage of the state’s child population that is Hispanic.

Teen Pregnancy Prevention: Research-Based Policy Recommendations for Executive and Legislative Officials in 2017

Related to my last post, I am happy to share this resource, as well, from Child Trends titled, Teen Pregnancy Prevention: Research-Based Policy Recommendations for Executive and Legislative Officials in 2017.

Angela Valenzuelac/s

@naraltx @naral #TX4access #LatEdPolicy #TxEd #Texas #Latina

A view of the future through kindergarten demographics

Why we should focus on today's kindergartners and earlier ages:

“Today's kindergartners will be in their early 40s by 2050, when Latinos are expected to comprise nearly a third of the US population. Thus, the strength of the country's future workforce will depend on today's investments in facilitating their academic journey.”  (p. 22)

Murphey, D., Guzman, L., & Torres, A. M. (2014). America's Hispanic Children: Gaining Ground, Looking Forward. Child Trends.

  
-Angela 

By Jens Manuel Krogstad

Today’s kindergartners offer a glimpse of tomorrow’s demographics. A
new data analysis by Pew Research Center finds a big increase over the
past decade in the number of states where at least one-in-five public
school kindergartners are Latino.


There are 17 states where Latino children comprise at least 20% of
the public school kindergarten population, according to our analysis of
2012 Census Bureau data. By comparison, just eight states had such a
composition a decade earlier, in 2000.




At 54 million, Hispanics are the largest minority group. They make up 17% of the nation’s population, and have dispersed across the nation. The states where at least one-in-five kindergartners are Hispanic include some states with historically few Hispanic immigrants,
such as Nebraska, Idaho and Washington. In Kansas and Oregon, fully
one-in-four kindergartners are Hispanic, the same share as in New York,
which has the fourth-largest Hispanic population in the country.  


Fueled in part by Hispanic population growth, there may be more
minorities in classrooms when school starts this fall (among them
blacks, Asians and Hispanics) than white students nationwide in K-12
public schools, according to U.S. Department of Education projections.
In 2014, some 50.3% of students are projected to be minorities. That’s a
sharp increase from 1997, when minorities made up just 36.7% of
students.


Minorities also are expected to become the majority in the United
States in the coming decades. Minorities today make up about 37% of the
overall population, with the share projected to increase to 57% by 2060,
according to the Census Bureau. Among people of all ages, there are
four states where minorities make up a majority of the
population—California, Hawaii, New Mexico and Texas.


Looking ahead, nearly half of babies born in the U.S. today are a racial or ethnic minority, though they are not yet a majority. The number of Hispanics has increased in recent years primarily due to births, as the number of Hispanic immigrants has stalled after four decades of rapid growth. In 2012, one-in-four of the nation’s newborns were Hispanic. By 2060, Hispanics are projected to make up 31% of the overall U.S. population.

Topics: Education, Hispanic/Latino Demographics, Population Geography, Population Projections, Population Trends

The Youngest Americans: A Statistical Portrait of Infants and Toddlers in the U.S. (2013)

 

Executive Summary

America’s youngest children—12 million infants and toddlers—are the leading edge of a demographic transformation in the U.S. They herald a nation more diverse with respect to race/ethnicity, country of origin, language, and family type than at any time in our recent history. They are surrounded by, and engaged with, new technology. Most of our youngest Americans, according to their parents, have at least some of the important characteristics associated with optimal development.

At the same time, they are a generation characterized by marked inequities, with disturbing proportions facing severe disadvantage that imposes both immediate and lasting threats to well-being. Significant numbers are born into families without the human and financial resources to promote their development; disparities by race and Hispanic origin persist; public policy responses have been slow to materialize and, where they

exist, often serve only a fraction of the children in need.

Economic Hardship

Many in this generation are starting out with severe economic hardship.

•

Nearly half (48 percent) of America’s infants and toddlers

live in low-income families (incomes less than twice the poverty line); one-quarter (25 percent) live in families below the official poverty line.

•

One in eight (13 percent) is in deep poverty (that is, their family’s income is half or less than the poverty level).

•

Economic disadvantage is concentrated in the families of black and Latino infants and toddlers; fully two-thirds (66 percent) of these young children are in low-income families.

•

Nearly one in four (24 percent) black and Latino infants and toddlers live in households that are “food-insecure” (a measure of inability to obtain sufficient healthy food).

Multiple Inequities, Multiple Disadvantages

The deep inequities marked by income and race/ethnicity are often compounded by fragile family configurations. Increasing numbers of America’s youngest children (24 percent, in 2012) are raised by a single parent. A small (but increasing) number (16 percent) are in the care of grandparents. 

The available research tells us that these circumstances, on average, are riskier for children’s optimal development. More troubling is that these children are also disproportionately in families where their parents or other caretakers are poor and poorly educated. The disadvantages of being poor, and with unmarried parents who lack the preparation that would allow them to join the middle class, converge for many of our youngest children, hobbling their progress virtually from their earliest days of life.