Jersey's
northwest corner is child-friendly
Morris, Sussex, Warren in state's
top 10 places for kids
Thursday, March 02, 2006 • BY JIM LOCKWOOD, KRISTEN
ALLOWAY AND MIKE FRASSINELLI • Star-Ledger Staff
When it comes to best places for children
in New Jersey, Morris, Sussex and Warren counties rank among
the top 10 in the state, according to statistics released
yesterday by a child-advocacy group.
The data is a follow-up to the 14th
annual Kids Count report that was released in January by the
nonprofit Association for Children of New Jersey.
The report shows that children in Morris,
Sussex and Warren counties generally tend to fare well. In
comparing 13 measures of child health, safety, education and
overall well-being, Morris, Sussex and Warren ranked second,
fifth and ninth, respectively, among the state's 21
counties.
Wealthier suburban counties tended to
rank higher than urban counties, while the four counties at
the bottom of the list are in rural southern Jersey. The
county profiles "show the wide disparity in opportunities
for children in different parts of the state," said
association executive director Cecilia Zalkind.
In percentage of women receiving
first-trimester prenatal care -- which is a key indicator of
healthy babies -- Sussex, Morris and Warren ranked first (90
percent), second (89 percent) and sixth (84 percent),
respectively. The statewide average was 76
percent.
Sussex's top prenatal rank is due to
availability of prenatal care for both insured and uninsured
women, as well as an effective public and private network of
human services.
"Due to the nature of Sussex County, many
citizens have health insurance and therefore can access
prenatal care, and for those who don't, Newton Memorial
Hospital has a prenatal clinic," said county health
Administrator Stephen Gruchacz. "And we do a tremendous
amount of outreach among our agencies."
Jane Litterio, the Maternal/ Child Health
clinical manager at Newton Memorial, added that the hospital
does a lot of community education and advertising of
services. OB-GYN doctors affiliated with the hospital stress
prenatal care, and positive "word of mouth" also pays
dividends, she said.
In some respects, the annual report may
be a mixed bag for counties.
For example, wealthy Morris County ranked
second in the state overall, but was near the bottom in the
percentages of 4-year-old children enrolled in public
preschool programs. Sussex ranked last in that
category.
Only three districts in Morris County --
Dover, Morris and Wharton -- take advantage of state money
to run public preschool programs. With the county's high
incomes also tied to higher housing costs, there may be a
greater need for public preschool than is being met, said
association spokeswoman Nancy Parello.
"If you're paying $1,500 a month on rent,
you may not be able to spend another five (hundred dollars)
on preschool," Parello said. "It's important for all kids to
have that."
MaryJo Buchanan, executive director of
Family Service of Morris County, agreed that there are not
enough subsidized preschool spots available, and children
who do receive the service often have great
needs.
In Warren County, Donna Rue, the
community health educator and partnership coordinator, was
pleased with her county's top 10 ranking, but added there's
always room for improvement.
"It's not bad, but it's not as good as it
can be," Rue said.
Warren scores high marks for prenatal
care and immunizations, but gets poor marks for availability
of pediatric dental care. And although Warren's teenage
pregnancy rate is lower than most counties, "We would like
to have no teenage pregnancies," she said.
"It's great," Rue said of Warren's
ranking of ninth among the 21 New Jersey counties. "We could
be 19. When you figure out where we are, that's good. We're
a rural county and we don't have a lot of inner cities, so a
lot of grants and a lot of programs that are dedicated to
minorities and inner cities, we don't get. I think it speaks
very highly of the agencies and the programs that exist in
the county."
Rue pointed out that because the county
does not get funding for many of its programs, many agencies
and municipalities network to pool their resources, and rely
on volunteers.
The rankings come as Warren is working on
a complementary countywide health study that by next year
will determine the county's health priorities and problems
and come up with strategies. The county is studying data for
its own quality of life and behavioral risk factor survey
and looking to see how it measures up on such topics as
diversity, mental health and maternal/child
health.
Rankings also may not tell the whole
story in any given county or town.
Faith Kitchen and its food pantry at
Trinity Lutheran in Dover are seeing more clients with
children, and the increase is largely due to an influx of
Latinos in the area, said church administrative coordinator
Suzanne Capps. The pantry distributes grocery bags of tuna,
spaghetti sauce and soup to 500 families once every four
weeks.
"There's been more families than ever
before, just a huge increase," Capps said. "It's hard to
keep food on the shelves."
For more information on Kids Count, see
www.acnj.org.
Jim Lockwood covers Sussex County and may be reached at
jlock wood@starledger.com or (973) 383-0516. Kristen Alloway
covers Morris County and may be reached at (973) 539-7910 or
kalloway@star ledger.com. Mike Frassinelli covers Warren
County and may be reached at (908) 475-1218 or mfras
sinelli@starledger.com.
© 2006 The Star-Ledger. Used by NJ.com with
permission.
|