Ford, Carnegie Award $1.2 Million for Center to Help Poor Children

The Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Corp. have awarded $1.2 million in grants to establish the National Resource Center for Children in Poverty, it was announced Sunday.

Organizers said they hope the “action-oriented” center will help improve programs that contribute to the healthy development of the estimated 13 million children who live in poverty.

“Although a great variety of organizations are struggling to address particular aspects of children’s poverty, few are attempting to provide a forum to encourage professionals serving children to look at issues beyond the perspectives of their own specialties,” said a statement by Franklin A. Thomas, president of Ford Foundation, and David Hamburg, president of Carnegie Corp.

Initially, the center will focus on maternal and child health services, community family-support systems and early childhood education and health care.

The center will be located in Columbia University’s School of Public Health and directed by Judith E. Jones, associate professor, who said that she will not “wait for perfect answers.”

“We are going to move with the best knowledge we possess about helping young families,” she said.

Barbara D. Blum, head of the center’s advisory council, said that programs for teen-age parents, troubled families and the prevention of child abuse are springing up all over the country.

“Unfortunately, not enough attention is being focused on programs that work,” she said.