The Sheltering Arms Foundation: Addressing Needs of Children and Families Living in Poverty

Source: Giving Forum Winter 2012 01/27/2012

By Denise Mayotte, Executive Director, The Sheltering Arms Foundation

Too many children in Minnesota are struggling. Nearly 190,000 live in poverty – 15 percent of the children in the state. More troubling is the fact that the number of children living in poverty is growing dramatically – by 56 percent in the last 10 years.

And the most alarming figure is how many children of color in Minnesota are poor – more than 100,000. There is a 60 percent child poverty rate in the American Indian community, it is 42 percent among African Americans and 33 percent in the state’s Latino community.

But statistics do not tell the whole story. Children living in poverty experience day-to-day challenges that no one should endure. Children in poverty tend to fail more often in school, experience more chronic health problems, undergo more emotional stress from family instability, have fewer options out of school and be more vulnerable to abuse. Plus, these challenges result in an enormous lack of opportunity.

Helping Children Since 1882

The Sheltering Arms Foundation’s mission charges us to fund organizations and support policies that benefit children and their families who have the least access to resources. This focus on vulnerable children has remained constant from our beginnings as an Episcopalian orphanage in 1882.

Our current strategies for addressing child poverty include ensuring kids get a good start with early childhood education, helping them reach their full potential through quality after-school programs, and funding family support programs that give parents resources to ensure their children’s success.

We also focus on policy because we know that our funding and, in fact, the funding provided by every foundation in Minnesota is insufficient to alleviate child poverty or to close the opportunity gap for children of color in our state. Through state and federal policy changes great strides can be made in addressing the needs of vulnerable children.

Advocacy for Early Childhood Care and Education

Statistics make the case to start early for children. On average, half the children in Minnesota don’t receive early childhood experiences to prepare them for success in kindergarten and beyond. Years later, many of those same children fail to graduate from high school.

The Sheltering Arms Foundation believes that funding innovative early childhood programs plus supporting policies to build an early childhood system that supports families is a crucial first step towards addressing this problem. Together with the funders that make up the Start Early Funders Coalition for Children and Minnesota’s Future and others, we have successfully advocated for an Office of Early Childhood within Minnesota’s Department of Education to make the system more efficient and functional for struggling Minnesota families.

We have also advocated for Parent Aware, Minnesota’s rating system that helps families identify quality care and also provides an early childhood report card to track how the state’s children are doing. We fund advocacy organizations that build public awareness and public will for early childhood funding, groups such as Child Care Works, Ready4K and the Minneapolis Children’s Advocacy Network.

Although we are a small foundation, we see our efforts magnified by partnering with other funders, advocates, legislators, the faith community and others to make a difference for our youngest citizens.

Out-of-School-Time Essential

We also believe that the journey to success for children in poverty doesn’t end once they reach kindergarten. Our support for quality out-of-school-time opportunities for Minnesota youth comes from our understanding that children need experiences that support their learning, development and leadership in order to reach their full potential.

For many young people living in poverty, the supportive relationships and mentoring they receive in out-of-school programs make a critical difference. Research shows that the quality of the programs that young people attend is a key factor in their success, so we have supported participation of several of our out-of-school-time grantees in the University of Minnesota’s Center for Youth Development “Quality Matters” program.

As with early childhood, we have engaged in youth and out-of-school-time policy issues. We have partnered with Youth Community Connections (now Youthprise), other funders through the Youth Funders Forum, and advocacy organizations and nonprofits that raise public awareness and legislative support for youth issues.

Parents as Best Teachers

The final critical element to helping children in poverty is to teach families to be strong advocates for their children. Parents are their children’s first and best teachers. Through our support of programs such as the Family Academy program of the Northside Achievement Zone, Wilder Foundation’s Incredible Years program and numerous other parenting programs, we help families learn parenting skills.

For many of these families, poverty has been a reality for generations. We support the idea originated by the Harlem Children’s Zone that families with children need a “conveyor belt” approach, with linkages between programs from birth (or before) through early childhood, the school years and beyond – with the family as the crucial component throughout.

Children Hold the Key

The Sheltering Arms Foundation is proud to be involved in statewide efforts to improve the lives of children by supporting coordinated systems that help families in poverty create better lives for their children. We are excited to see new policies that help make this possible. Our January 2012 co-sponsorship of the Children and Youth Issues Forum highlighted the work of the new Governor’s Children’s Cabinet that is coordinating state agencies’ work.

We are nearing our 30th anniversary as a foundation and the 130th anniversary of the organization. We have evolved over the years, but the constant has been a willingness to do whatever it takes to help children reach their full potential and to do it in partnership with the communities and organizations with whom we work.

We know that the children growing up right now in our state hold the key to Minnesota’s future prosperity. They are surely worth our investment.

The Sheltering Arms Foundation invests in the lives of Minnesota’s children with the least access to resources to help them reach their full potential. www.sheltering-arms.org