DC ACTION FOR CHILDREN DC KIDS COUNT e-Databook “People I meet... the effect upon me of my early life... of the ward and city I live in... of the nation” —Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass Every city has many identities, depending on But Washington, aka DC, is also simply a who you ask. A legislator, a police officer, a hometown, where many people live their daily coach or a clerk might describe the same lives, raise their children and create community city’s people, culture and reputation in starkly and the future together. different terms. Washington is home to 100,000 children We are the nation’s capital, the official under 18. They are one in six DC residents. Washington that so many politicians run The number of children under the age of 5 has campaigns against. We are an international started to grow again after almost a decade of center of power, featuring stately embassies and decline.1 serving as the temporary home to diplomats. This DC KIDS COUNT e-databook is for and For some Americans, Washington is a code about them. word for the bubble where politicians hobnob with “fat cats,” bureaucrats operate and media Why Place Matters in the Lives of swarm over the latest scandal. Children (and Families) For some Americans, Washington is a place to Children grow up (and families live) in specific visit with their children to learn about history, places: neighborhoods. How well these read the original Declaration of Independence, neighborhoods are doing affects how well the stand on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and children and their families who live in them are 1. DC Action for Children. (2011). A Tale visit the Air and Space Museum. doing and will do. of Three Cities: What the Census Says About the District and How We Must Respond. For some Americans, Washington is a hub of Many children grow up in high-poverty African-American culture and education, as the neighborhoods, with the disadvantages that 2. Komro, K., Flay, B.R., & Biglan, birthplace of the movement that became the can create and perpetuate. Simply put, growing A. (2011). Creating Nurturing Environments: A Science-Based Harlem Renaissance, home to Black Broadway up in a high-poverty neighborhood is bad for Framework for Promoting Child Health on U Street and the site of one of the nation’s children.2 and Development in High Poverty Neighborhoods. Clinical Child Family most prestigious historically Black colleges, Psychological Review, 14, 111-134. Howard University. DC Action for Children • 1432 K Street, NW, Suite 1050, Washington, DC 20005 • 202-234-9404 • @ActforDChildren • [email protected] • www.dckids.org 2 High-poverty neighborhoods put critical This phenomenon disproportionately resources for healthy child growth and affects children of color. Low-income development, including high-performing working black families are significantly schools, quality medical care and safe more likely to live in high-poverty outdoor spaces, out of reach.3 neighborhoods than low-income working white families.6 Neighborhood poverty is 3. Annie E. Casey Foundation. (2012). Children Living in Beyond the obvious effects of poverty, such also likely behind the striking mobility gap America’s High Poverty Communities. as not being able to afford the nutritious between blacks and whites in the US.7 In 4. See note 3. 5. DC KIDS COUNT. food, health care, and other things children DC, the neighborhoods with the highest 6. Turner, M.A., & Fortuny, K. (2009). Residential need to thrive, growing up in high-poverty levels of concentrated poverty are almost Segregation and Low-Income Working Families. Urban areas has far-reaching effects caused by entirely Black (although, certainly, not all Institute. 7. Sharkey, P. (2009). Neighborhoods and the Black- factors beyond parents’ income. Black children in DC are growing up in White Mobility Gap. Pew Charitable Trusts. high-poverty neighborhoods). 8. Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative. Nationally, the chance of a child living (Undated). Health Inequities in the Bay Area. 8 9. World Health Organization. (2008). Closing the Gap in a high-poverty neighborhood grew A robust body of literature, both national in a Generation: Health Equity Through Action on the significantly in the last decade. The and international,9 is growing around the Social Determinants of Health. 10. Jones, C. et al. (2009). Addressing the Social number of children living in high-poverty concept of social determinants and the Determinants of Children’s Health: A Cliff Analogy. neighborhoods has risen by 1.6 million, a powerful influence they have over an Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 25 percent increase since 2000.4 In DC, individual’s and a community’s health, 20(4), 1-12. 11. Grantmakers in Health. (2011). Supporting one in three children is growing up in a as well as children’s health and well- Children’s Healthy Development: Place DOES Matter. high-poverty neighborhood.5 being.10, 11 These determinants – such Acknowledgements This work would not have been possible without the hard work and - Department of Mental Health: Barbara Parks support of many people and organizations – incredible partners who - Office of the State Superintendent of Education: Jessica Enos and shared their knowledge, expertise and talents with us. Jeffrey Noel Our partners at DataKind, especially Jake Porway and his team, Others whose guidance, suggestions and data we relied on: opened a whole new world of analytic possibility for us, listening - Children’s National Medical Center: Jerome Paulson to our unorthodox ideas and signing up to help anyway. Through - Consumer Health Foundation: Margaret O’Bryon, Ria Pugeda and DataKind, we were connected with an amazing group of pro bono Rachel Wick data scientists – our data heroes – who helped us collect, analyze, - DC Lawyers for Youth: Eduardo Ferrer aggregate and visualize our data over a six-month period. - George Washington University School of Public Health: Olga Acosta Price and Julia Lear We are especially grateful to Sisi Wei (our fearless data team leader) - Urban Institute/NeighborhoodInfoDC: Peter Tatian and Jenn and Brandon Behlendorf, Emily Chow, Will Durbin, Jason Hoekstra, Comey Andy Hull, Nick McClellan, Alycia Perez, Max Richman, Josh Wenk - Unity Health Care: Robert Zarr and Jerzy Wieczorek and the many others who helped us during the - Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority: Sakshi Mehta March 2012 DC Datadive, where we met this amazing group. They put in their own time after work and on weekends to make our data come We received two years of invaluable advice and guidance from our alive. Little do they know, they are officially friends of DC Action for KIDS COUNT Advisory Committee: Lee Beers and Chaya Merrill of life! Children’s National Medical Center, Judy Berman of DC Appleseed, Ed Lazere and Jenny Reed of DC Fiscal Policy Institute, Martha Ross Many, many thanks to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, for faith in us of the Brookings Institution, Rachel Wick of the Consumer Health to do this work, and the KIDS COUNT staff there (especially Jann Foundation and Travis Wright, formerly of George Washington Jackson and Laura Speer), who encouraged us to take the long view University. and who did not flinch in their support of us, even as we explored a somewhat non-traditional approach to a KIDS COUNT databook. We are indebted to our partners at Red Thinking for walking with us in this journey of designing and executing both web-based and We also owe a debt of gratitude to many knowledgeable DC text-based materials to ensure the information came alive for all of government data experts who provided public data to us, as well us – design folks or not. Their wisdom, patience and creativity got us as guidance about what data to request from them (or from other to the very end! agencies) and how to interpret it. Last, but most certainly, not least, the staff of DC Action for Children, - Office of Planning: Chris David all of whom participated in the conceptualizing and executing - DC Public Charter School Board: Ashok Oli this work, including data collection, analysis, research and writing: - DC Public Schools: Kelly Linker HyeSook Chung, Tulli Dobler, Kate Kairys and Gwen Rubinstein. We - Department of the Environment: Harrison Newton and Adam were also ably assisted by numerous interns, but most especially our Allston Summer 2012 Education Pioneer Fellow Bonnie O’Keefe and our - Department of Health: Autumn Saxton-Rose and LaVerne Jones 2011-2012 intern Lauren Deutsch. - Department of Health Care Finance: Valentine Breitbarth, Benjamin Finder and Colleen Sonosky DC Action for Children • 1432 K Street, NW, Suite 1050, Washington, DC 20005 • 202-234-9404 • @ActforDChildren • [email protected] • www.dckids.org 3 as education, housing and employment Place in DC’s History – have a powerful effect on people’s lives and well-being, including children. Since the city’s founding, laws, They are highly correlated with where policies and practices have shaped people live and the conditions of the DC neighborhoods, influencing where neighborhoods in which they live. many people could live and work. Some repercussions carry forward to today DC as a Place for Children and helped to construct the city and community as we know it. The city’s prosperity rests on the shoulders of its children. They are the For example, a city ordinance in the next generation of citizens, workers, 1830s forbade blacks from operating teachers, parents and leaders. How well their own businesses14 and, until 1948, they do is critical to our city’s future. racial covenants in property deeds restricted where blacks and other Where these children live, learn and play ethnic groups could buy property and deeply affects all aspects of their lives.