According to Research from Center for Health and Social Policy and Yale

In recognition of National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day, Raising Texas, the State's Early Childhood Comprehensive Systems Initiative, and the Center for Health and Social Policy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs are pleased to welcome Dr. Walter Gilliam, Ph.D. to discuss his landmark study on young children who have been expelled from state-funded pre-Kindergarten programs due to challenging behaviors.

The event will be held Thursday, May 8th from 9:00 a.m. to Noon at the ThompsonConferenceCenter on the Campus the University of Texas.

Toddlers and preschoolers are being removed from programs at alarming rates, and few child care providers are adequately trained to address these children's needs. In August 2007, Raising Texas and the Texas Association of Child Care Resources and Referral Agencies  (TACCRRA) conducted a survey of licensed child care and registered family child care centers across Texas.  The survey highlights include:

• 66% said that they have children in care with suspected and diagnosed behavioral or emotional difficulties
• 58% have seen an increase in challenging behaviors in the past 5 years
• 60% said that it had become necessary to ask a parent to remove the child from care
• 81% said that they had received somewhat or no training at all to address emotional behaviors
• 24% received no training to address emotional behaviors

Dr. Gilliam's study reveals how pervasive the problem of pre-K expulsion is in our State.  He finds that in Texas, children in the Public School PreKindergarten program are expelled at over twice the rate as compared to children in grades K-12 (5.99 vs. 2.93 per 1000 students, respectively), despite a state policy against expelling very young children. 

Because children's challenging behavioral problems are not adequately identified and addressed prior to school entry, the problems expand and become increasingly costly to the child and the State.  A report by Texas Appleseed shows that over the past five years, 110 school districts in Texas have referred Pre-K and Kindergarten children to Alternative Discipline Programs (DAEPs), despite a statutory ban on placement of children under the age of 6 into these programs unless they have brought a firearm to school.  Additionally, more than 3000 first graders in 202 school districts in Texas have been referred to a DAEP.

Challenging behavioral problems make it extremely difficult for a child to excel in school, and these children are retained at much higher rates than children with only cognitive delays. In 2005-2006, Texas retained over 47,000 children in Kindergarten through second grade, at an operating cost of approximately $7,200 per student, for a total of $343 million dollars .  Many of these retentions stem from behavioral problems that were not properly identified or addressed prior to elementary school.

The Center for Health and Social Policy is part of the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and focuses its research on health care, disability, aging, Welfare, retirement and US-Mexico health care and border health issues.  In addition to Dr. Lambrew, CHASP associates and LBJ Professors Dr. David C. Warner and Dr. Jacqueline L. Angel will moderate the panels.  The conference is one of the special events scheduled in the year-long celebration of Lyndon B. Johnson's 100th birthday (1908-2008). It is being co-sponsored by the Commonwealth Fund, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.  On the web @ www.utexas.edu/chasp