Behind from the Start

How America's War on the Poor is Harming Our Most Vulnerable Children

Lenette Azzi-Lessing

Connects the dots between our public and political discourse and our public policies, and examines their effects on poor young children.
Takes liberal and conservative politicians and pundits to task in equal measure.
Written from the perspective of a scholar who has spent most of her career on the front lines of programs and policies affecting poor families with children.
Explains how the U.S. is not doing enough to interrupt the poverty cycle and why programs such as universal Pre-K, Head Start, and home visiting are inadequate to the cause.

Behind from the Start

How America's War on the Poor is Harming Our Most Vulnerable Children

Lenette Azzi-Lessing

Description

Today there are nearly six million children under the age of five living in poverty in the world's richest country. Blanket statements are often tossed around in the political arena, public debate sphere, and progressive rhetoric. But the statistic remains intangible for many Americans, likely because the root causes, effects, and implications are multifaceted and complex, and are often hard to understand for the average American living a much different reality. What is needed is a clear and thorough discussion of this epidemic, and Behind from the Start answers that call. Author Lenette Azzi-Lessing examines what lies behind the stubbornly high rate of poverty among young children in the U.S. and the resulting consequences, both for the children themselves and for America as a whole.

Behind from the Start examines the link between America's shaming, blaming, and marginalizing of poor parents, and our punitive welfare policies that jeopardize the life chances of vulnerable young children, thereby maintaining the cycle of chronic poverty. Research has shown that the experience of poverty in the first years of life is particularly harmful, blunting physical and brain development, increasing the risk for chronic health issues and injury, and limiting a person's lifelong capacity for learning and success. In debunking the myths that help perpetuate the cycle of poverty in the world's richest country, Lenette Azzi-Lessing reveals how negative public and political discourse regarding poor families impacts the poorly conceived and fragmented programs intended to support them, which have in turn failed to meet their aims. She considers the cultural and political forces that contribute to intergenerational poverty in the U.S., the consequences for the millions of young children in families stuck at the bottom of our economy, and the beneficial impacts that would be felt country-wide in fixing some of these persistent problems.

Drawing upon knowledge from diverse fields, including neuroscience, media studies, and public policy, as well as the author's experiences on the front lines as a practicing social worker, Behind from the Start offers a fresh take on this shameful problem and its solutions.

Behind from the Start

How America's War on the Poor is Harming Our Most Vulnerable Children

Lenette Azzi-Lessing

Foreword, Lisbeth Schorr

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. Stuck at the Bottom: Poor Policies for Poor Families

Chapter 3. From the War on Poverty to the War on Poor Families

Chapter 4: Poverty is Poison: Multiple Assaults on Young Lives

Chapter 5. It Takes a Firestorm: How the Child Welfare System Harms Children and Perpetuates the Cycle

Chapter 6. The Emperor's Old Clothes: The False Promise of Simple Solutions

Chapter 7. We're Gonna Need a Bigger Boat: Stronger, Better Strategies for Breaking the Cycle

Chapter 8: From Neurons to National Policy: Using What We Know to Break the Cycle of Disadvantage

Behind from the Start

How America's War on the Poor is Harming Our Most Vulnerable Children

Lenette Azzi-Lessing

Author Information

Lenette Azzi-Lessing, PhD, is Associate Professor in the Division of Social Work, Leadership, and Public Policy at Wheelock College, Boston. She is the founder and director of Wheelock's Graduate Certificate Program in Early Childhood Mental Health and faculty leader of the college's South Africa Partnership for Early Childhood Development. She joined the faculty after more than 25 years as a front-line social worker, CEO, and policy advocate.

Behind from the Start

How America's War on the Poor is Harming Our Most Vulnerable Children

Lenette Azzi-Lessing

Reviews and Awards

From the Foreword by Lisbeth Schorr, Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Policy: "Lenette Azzi- Lessing's book stands alone among important social policy books in synthesizing the critical knowledge from all of the domains that must be connected if ambitious social change is to succeed. She draws on the most current findings from research and from experience. She documents the unmet needs of vulnerable young children, adolescents, and their families, and puts it all together to identify the unparalleled opportunities now at hand to address those needs."

"Behind From the Start is a searing exposé that traces the responsibility of politicians, the media, academics, and policymakers for the unnecessary tragedy of American childhood poverty. We can do better, its author argues, with adequately funded 'extra-strength' programs and locally driven systemic interventions powered by systematic learning methods, science-enlightened policy targeting the structural roots of poverty, and a national movement to make 'ending child poverty the defining cause of our time." --Joshua Sparrow, MD, Harvard Medical School

"Professor Azzi-Lessing has written a very accessible account of the plight of young children in the United States born into poverty. . . . She provides a thorough overview of an array of programs aimed at improving child outcomes for vulnerable young children, including Early Head Start, maternal child home visiting, universal pre-Kindergarten, and quality early care and education, as well as some newer promising programs. . . . The policy strategies and reforms that she proposes are comprehensive but within our reach. This text is a must-read for advocates hoping to build a brighter future for American children." --Pamela C. High, MD, Professor of Pediatrics, W. Alpert School of Medicine, Brown University

"First, Azzi-Lessing combines engaging personal storytelling, keen historical analysis, and careful scientific reasoning to refute the 'blame and shame the poor' rhetoric that pervades our public discourse and public policies. Then, she brings innovative thinking and an animating moral fervor to propose 'extra-strength' programs and policies that really could work to combat poverty and to lift the burden our society currently places on the backs of children and families living in poverty. A tour de force!" --J. Lawrence Aber, PhD, Willner Family Professor in Psychology and Public Policy, New York University

"In this timely and masterful synthesis of current research and personal experience as a social worker, Azzi-Lessing (Wheelock College) brings together knowledge from across a variety of disciplines to explain the disastrous effects of poverty on the poorest children in the US. The author spends much of the book dismantling racist and classist misperceptions that influence public policy against the poor...this book is well researched, readable, and exceptionally well timed, explaining how and why extreme poverty destroys the lives of poor children in the US while offering hope for a solution." --CHOICE