The executive summary of a 47-page report released earlier this month paints a sobering picture for children in Vance County, and includes information about challenges, disparities and gaps in a range of services in the community to support children’s well-being.
A project team from Positive Childhood Alliance North Carolina gathered information from 16 community partners who agreed to participate in the study. Through these structured interviews, the team learned about current programs and services available to children and families in the county, as well as identify the most pressing issues and challenges children here face and how those challenges affect children’s well-being.
“Children in Vance County face significantly greater challenges than those confronting the average child in North Carolina,” the executive report states. “This disparity can be significantly reduced by increasing collaboration among the agencies and organizations that serve the most vulnerable families and children in Vance County.”
PCANC provided a project team for the study and worked in partnership with Cara Gill, executive director of Strength and Mending Child Advocacy Center of Henderson. The study was commissioned by Triangle North Healthcare Foundation with support from the John William Pope Foundation.
In the North Carolina Public School Forum’s 2023 report called The Roadmap of Need: A Whole Child Needs Assessment for North Carolina Youth, Vance County ranked 93rd worst out of 100 counties for “indicators of wellness across five domains: economic development, physical health, mental health and safety, education inputs and education outcomes.”
The recently released TNHF report uses this information, as well as information from a 2022 vulnerability assessment for the Kerr-Tar COG which states that “Vance County residents, specifically near the county seat of Henderson, should be considered the most vulnerable group in the region.”
The TNHF report includes a list of programs, agencies and resources in the county that work to meet the needs of children and families, from social service agencies to food, housing and day care, to name a few.
The study participants identified mental health needs among the top needs that affect the children in the county. A shortage of programs and staff means more than half the county’s children and adults aren’t able to access the behavioral health care they need.
Click Here to View Full Document
2/26/24 – Click Play!