by Richard Prior
Staff Writer
The imagination will have a tough time wrapping itself around this suggestion.
What if children had lobbyists? Something on the order of the National Association of Manufacturers or the National Rifle Association.
Maybe the imagination struggles because the suggestion seems unnecessary.
We’re comfortable with images of fresh-scrubbed, laughing children, whose attentive parents help them build on the basics that will lead to happy, successful lives.
We don’t see much of the children who lack the basics of life, said Professor Cleveland Ferguson at Florida Coastal School of Law.
“We’re talking about the absolute basics — food, water, shelter,” Ferguson said. “Access to health care, day care, education. You’re not talking about the whole farm here. Just very basic needs.”
This summer, Ferguson took over a multi-year chair in human rights and strategic initiatives established by the FCSL board of directors.
“We have a mandate to work on behalf of issues involving human rights, specifically with children and people of African descent,” said Ferguson. “It’s one of the projects that Dennis Stone, who had been the interim dean, was involved in.
“He was working with the Duval County Health Department and the Urban League of Duval County to really begin to address the issues surrounding children.”
FCSL’s new dean, Peter Goplerud, has also blessed the task force, encouraging it to get the program up and running by January.
As head of the program, Ferguson developed a class called International Health and Human Rights, a seminar to explore the issues with children’s rights around the world. Participants examine ways to apply the international Convention on the Rights of the Child to Duval County.
“As part of the process,” Ferguson said, “I came across the opportunity to develop a Children’s Advocacy Center and a Children’s Welfare Clinic that would have faculty members from Florida Coastal that would teach some course work in victim’s rights and child advocacy components.
“In addition, we’ve developed a nine-credit, two-semester clinic in child advocacy and children’s welfare.”
The program would be housed in the Center for Strategic Governance and International Initiatives at Florida Coastal.
“We’ll be colleagues working together, using the resources and the contacts of the Center for Strategic Governance to to help empower this center,” said Executive Director Eric Smith.
The Children’s Welfare Clinic will work with the Child Protection Team, “which has a number of public-private partnerships,” said Ferguson. “They’re getting funded by the Department of Children and Families as well as any number of private organizations throughout Duval County.
“The Child Protection Team gets a lot of support from the Jaguars and a number of other entities.”
“The business community is very excited about this potential public-private-governmental partnership coming to the fore,” Smith added.
In addition to serving as an advocacy center, the project would serve as a research hub for Duval County in partnership with the Duval County Department of Health and the Jacksonville Children’s Commission.
Ferguson said a combine of public and private organizations in the city showed 58 percent of Duval County citizens do not have health care.
“You multiply that by the number of children in that household, it’s really extraordinary,” he added. “What makes Duval County a perfect laboratory for this is the city council does dedicate funds to children’s health care.
“The Jacksonville Children’s Commission also has a number of innovative programs from day care to providing health are through the KidCare program, tutorials and workshops for mothers from prenatal care to beyond birth.”
In the mid-1980s, Smith introduced the legislation that created the Jacksonville Children’s Services Board, which became the Jacksonville Children’s Commission.
“My notion from day one was that children and children’s issues need to be advanced to the very front of the political agenda instead of shunted to the last,” he said. “I know when I first introduced the (JCSB), some of the children’s advocates said ... it’s competing with this referendum or that election or whatever.
“I said it never seems to be the right time for kids. But this is the time that we’ve got to wrap our arms around this issue and reach our hands out to help children.”
One of the tines in FCSL’s multi-prong attack is to train advocates eager to take on children’s issues.
“We feel it’s a great opportunity to get the students involved in some of the policy issues,” Ferguson said. “Some of these folks who are graduating are going to be legislators on the local and state level and beyond.”
Another tine is research, which will “explore ways to help make the policy shift in the way businesses view the issue, the way the governmental and educational issues view the issue,” Ferguson explained. “We’re also hoping to host a children’s summit that will be televised by C-Span to really bring attention to the issue and the productive, positive way in which Duval County and Florida Coastal are dealing with the issue.”
Ferguson and Smith stressed that the program is not intended to take the place of parents. It is intended to identify families that need the most help and then provide it.
“Yes, we’re talking about 58 percent of the population not having health care,” said Ferguson. “But we’re also talking about the working poor, who need the help and additional support to continue to make ends meet.
“This is certainly not an attempt to supplant the parent. This is a supplement.”