Event Focuses on Health Care, Free Programs

COSTA MESA — At a time when fewer than half of 2-year-olds in Orange County have been immunized and child poverty has risen 42% in the past decade, participants in the Second Annual County Summit for Children called for greater access to health services and more free after-school programs.

The all-day event Saturday at Orange Coast College called for ways to address the worsening troubles of Orange County youth.

Besides the immunization problems and the poverty increase, the number of child abuse reports grew 29% between 1989 and 1992.

“The goal of the summit is to develop momentum in the community,” said Glenn Parrish, co-chairman. “It is an annual time to recharge our batteries and recommit ourselves.”

In all, 396 teachers, counselors, elected officials and members of nonprofit organizations who work with children attended.

In a closing presentation, Parrish listed some of the community’s shortcomings in dealing with children, but also stressed the importance of capitalizing on resources that already exist, like volunteer groups and community centers.

He said one oft-repeated complaint in the summit’s discussion groups was that “people want to see organizations such as churches and schools work together more.”

The summit, in which high school students led discussion groups and talked about their own community work, also was meant to show what is good about today’s young people that may go unnoticed, Parrish said.

“Our teens are resources for the community,” he said. “They are not problems to be solved.”

Joe Sanberg, a 15-year-old sophomore at Servite High School in Anaheim and one of the youth volunteers, said the best thing about the summit was “collaborating with adults and showing the difference that youth can make.”

At least one community leader said privately that she was disappointed that the summit did not take policy stands on issues like Proposition 187, the ballot proposal that would restrict health and educational services offered to illegal immigrants.

Lorraine Mazza, director of the event, acknowledged that she had heard this complaint and said summit participants may decide to take policy positions on political issues in the future. But this year, she said, the emphasis was on the positive.

Another children’s advocacy group, Children Now of Los Angeles, issued its fifth annual report Saturday outlining critical problems many children face in education, safety, health and economic security.

Among the report’s statewide findings:

* Twenty-four percent of fourth-graders could not fully understand a basic reading assignment, while 20% of eighth-graders could not write a basic essay. The percentages were much lower in Orange County: 17% of fourth-graders couldn’t understand the reading assignment and 14% couldn’t write the essay.

* Although the high school dropout rate has lessened in recent years, fewer than one-third of students who finish high school are adequately prepared for college. In Orange County 10.8% of the high school class of 1993 dropped out.

* The largest number of children killed by guns die in the seven major counties where gun sales are the highest, including Orange County, where there were 37 deaths in 1992.