Help

I can remember the conversation as if it was yesterday. While in a grocery store walking in the grocery aisle, I overheard a woman talking to another woman and her husband. The part that caught my attention was the young lady saying, “I can get you the cheese, milk, and eggs with my WIC, and all you have to do is give me the money when we leave the store. ” I knew this wasn’t right, so I made sure I was at the check-out counter to see if what I overheard was true.

To my surprise, the young woman paid for things using a check like piece of paper and waited for the couple to leave the store. In the parking lot, I witnessed the young lady giving the couple the bags that she left the store with and they handed her some cash. For this and many other reasons I would like to propose that people that receive this state appointed assistance should have a time limit on how much they can receive. Doing research on the assistance that is afforded to individuals, I learned how and why these programs were implemented.

For instance, the WIC (Women, Infant, and Children) program was established in 1968 after a group of physicians described to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and also the USDA that young women, often pregnant, came to their clinics with various ailments that were caused by lack of food. Those doctors would prescribe the needed foods, with prescription acting like a food voucher (Women, Infant and Children. gov). In this new day and age the program isn’t respected like in the past. The purpose of the program has taken a turn for the worse.

Where the program gives women a chance for a better nutritional way to feed their family, some take the route of scamming the government. Per the conversation I overheard, I use it as my main point on why there should be a limited amount of time placed on this for both women and men. Right now women can receive this assistance until their child reaches the age of five. While not all women abuse the system, the small amounts that do leave a nasty pill to swallow for those that don’t. Being put in the same category as a cheater give some mothers a bad rap.

My proposal to put these people on a timetable may not seem fair to some, but it will give these women a chance to help feed their families and also give them a chance to become independent on themselves instead of the government. As long as these women continue to have child after child before the first one reaches five, we the tax payers have to support the system that is being abused. For each program the person is on, I propose that we give them education and job training. This will help them get off the program and develop a sense of worth. Instead of hand outs, let the government give hand ups.

Making them accountable for more than just receiving a check or voucher will instill values in that person. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that we should help those that cannot help themselves. I believe that we shouldn’t just give help without checking to see how the recipients are doing with this help. While finding a clear cut way to track the applicants is a good way to start with this help. For instance, if the social worker sees a trend that a person turns up pregnant six months from the end of benefits multiple times may send up red flags that the system may be abused by that person.

This is a way of tracking and putting them in a category as maybe this person is abusing the system. As a taxpayer, seeing these people going to work would be a great accomplishment. RN Eugenie Hildebrant, author of Impoverished Women with Children and no Welfare Benefits states,” It is important that public health researchers investigate the experiences of the families for whom Temporary Assistance for Needy Families has failed” (793). This comes from her opinion that the system isn’t giving the families the help they really need.

Helping them with education and a way off the system will help them more than the handout they are receiving. Families that want to better themselves will try to get off the program. Being undereducated and entering an under skilled workforce may cause more harm than good to the family. Realizing their children will grow up poor or in poor health they have no choice but to get back on the system. The main issue on this is at least they tried to make a go of it before they had to come back onto the program. Offering job training may be a way to help families on the program.

It would give them a sense of pride in themselves and not the feeling of relying on the system for a chance to help their family. The training will get them off the program in two years with job training and the much needed education to have a well paying job. As far as Douglas Wolf, a research scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis states, “Underreporting or completely failing to report earnings to a welfare agency is a way of welfare fraud” (The Dynamics of Welfare Fraud) (438).

For the government to realize that some participants will this, then the system should have the right to monitor them. Getting the applicants a job, the system will be able to monitor the pay for a year. This way if you continue to work plus receive assistance, the assistance can be cut if you are getting a steady paycheck. Once a steady paycheck is coming in, your assistance will be evaluated to determine if it will be terminated. If for some reason the job does not offer any type of medical assistance for you or your children, the system will continue to pay you the medical portion.

If you stay at the job for two years in good standings and you receive a good income then you will be cut from the program. Once you have been released from the program if you lose your job due to anything beyond your control you may reapply for assistance until another job can be found for you. If you have lost the job and it was because you were not in good standings with the employer, then the system will make you reapply and the assistance you receive should be short term. They have already given you the skills needed to get a job so you shouldn’t be able to rely on the system again long term.

Pushing them to find another job should be the systems main focus on getting them back into society and providing for their family. Some may say what happens at the end of two years? It is tempting to pretend that if we just invested adequate resources, two years of intensive education and job training could make every single mother education and job training could make every single mother economically self-sufficient. But while that will surely be true for some, it will never be true for all. Unless we want another round of welfare reform that fails, we need to be realistic about the options open to us.

Contrary to what many politicians claim, the big obstacle to making single mothers economically self-sufficient is seldom the shortage of jobs. During recessions, of course, jobs are hard to find. When the economy is healthy, minimum-wage jobs are relatively easy to find. The problem is that a minimum-wage job will not make a single mother economically self-sufficient. There is endless controversy about how much money single mothers need to make ends meet. Absent fathers seem to imagine that these families can live on air.

My proposal is the most likely effect of time limits is that they will reduce the receipt of welfare benefits among single parents. The loss of welfare income might improve outcomes for children and families by reducing the stigma of public assistance receipt. In a way, the U. S. welfare system actually makes poverty more attractive, perhaps even to those who would otherwise have been motivated to work and support themselves. Do not decrease their motivation to work rather, give them the opportunity to participate more productively in their society.

The issue that comes with the WIC program and any other government program is why have it for people to abuse it? The program is in place to help those that need it the most. Unfortunately you have those that take advantage of the system as well as those who use the system to provide for their families. I have come to the realization that the programs should have limitations to it. As part of the working class, I feel that those on assistance should be given a time limit for being in the program. The system helps some, but those that take advantage should be punished.

ChiledHelp.org is a foundation that prevents and treat abused children.  ChildHelp.org has a mission to, “to meet the physical, emotional, educational, and spiritual needs of abused and neglected children. We do so by focusing our efforts in the areas of treatment, prevention, and research.”[1]   They function on the premises that: every child has a purpose to help the community, giving unconditional love is the beginning of healing, and that these unfortunate children deserve the best that the community can give.[2]

This wasn’t always how Childhelp.org was.

ChildHelp.org was founded in 1959 by two American actresses, Sara O’Meara and Yvonne Fedderson.  It started when they went to Japan after the war to entertain the US troops, a practice to maintain the morale of the soldiers.  While they were there, they noticed 11 desperate orphaned Amerasian children on the street suffering the cold.  Out of the kindness of their hearts, they decided to bring them to an orphanage, later on realizing that these 11 orphans had been rejected by the orphanages due to lack of space and the ethnicity of the 11 children.  Eventually, they found a woman in a hut who was already caring for Amerasian children.  Mama Kin, as she was called, made an agreement with the 2 actresses to take in the 11 children if O’Meara and Fedderson could find financial support. [3]

O’Meara and Fedderson did and their efforts were recognized resulting in the establishment of 4 orphanages under their lead in Japan.

At that time, they were called International Orphans, Inc. (IOI).  In 1966, they were invited to the White House and were asked to do the same thing for Vietnamese-American children.  They were able to build 6 orphanages, but when the Americans pulled out of Vietnam, the actresses were instrumental in the “Baby Lift” Operation wherein the Vietnamese children were pulled and were adopted off to very willing and loving American parents.[4]

In 1978, the foundation was asked by the White House to put their attention and efforts to abused children in the United States.  This is the point where they changed the focus of their foundation, from orphans to abused children and thus they changed their name to ChildHelp.org.[5]

Since then ChildHelp.org has created numerous programs to help abused and neglected children.  They have advocacy centers in 8 regions, namely, Michigan, California, Tennessee, Colorado, Georgia, Virginia, Washington D.C, and Arizona which houses two centers, one in Phoenix and the other in their headquarters in Scottsdale.  Each center coordinates with other institutions in the area.

For instance, in Phoenix, a partnership has been established between Child Help and Safe Child Center at Flagstaff Medical Center to attend to tribal rural areas.  In Georgia, the Good Touch / Bad Touch program, a violence prevention program and now considered a premium educational product, is being endorsed and given to schools by ChildHelp.org so that the children, as well as the teachers and administrators can be properly educated about sexual abuse.[6]  In Tennessee, a foster family program is being endorsed so that sexually abused children can live in a safe foster home.

These kinds of programs that involve the community are one of the ways that ChildHelp.org creates awareness throughout the community.

Another strategy that they use, which is often used by most people, is that they have Hollywood celebrities to endorse their product.  In the case of ChildHelp.org it is not a product that they are promoting but they are creating awareness by using their celebrity patrons.  Due to the founders Hollywood connections, a movie was created to pay tribute to the work of O’Meara and Fedderson.  This movie, entitled For the Love of a Child, was an immediate eye opener for the whole of America.  With this movie, not only was the problem of child abuse put to the forefront, but also, the mission of ChildHelp.org was advertised to allow people to contribute to and help these abused children.

Another way of promoting and pushing the cause of ChildHelp.org is by affiliating companies and corporation to the program allowing the employees to donate via their employers to ChildHelp.org.  Apart from a straight donation, people can buy items from ChildHelp.org, the profits of which will go to their programs or people can volunteer for programs or become a foster parent. [7]

ChilHelp.org has gone a long way from Japan and its orphanages.  It cannot be doubted the effort that Sara O’Meara and Yvonne Fedderson have put into this foundation, making them extremely deserving of the Nobel Peace Prize.  From these two people a lot of children have been given proper futures and families.  It started in a small hut Japan and transformed into a fortress of love and care.  It has also transformed itself numerous times to address the needs of children, whatever they may be, in Asia and in America.  Although, the focus may have changed from orphanages to abused children, the core remains the same – children have a purpose and with enough love from the community they will be able to achieve it.

Reference:

ChildHelp.Org. 12 September 2007.  Child Help Inc.. 12 September 2007. < http://www.childhelp.org/home>

Good Touch/ Bad Touch. 12 September 2007.  Child Help Inc. 12 September 2007. <https://childhelp.6connex.com/event/SpeakUpBeSafe/login>

“For the Love of a Child”.  LifetimeTV.com. 12 September 2007.  12 September 2007.

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