UMaine Hosts Child Welfare Conference

ORONO (NEWS CENTER) -- Social workers, medical profesisonals and educators gathered in Orono Thursday to tackle some of the state's toughest child welfare issues.

The 16th annual child welfare conference at the University of Maine focuses on issues like poverty, abuse, child exploitation and health issues. The keynote speaker for the event was Paul Tough, a reporter and editor for the New York Times Magazine.

Tough wrote the book "Whatever It Takes", which chronicles the rise of the Harlem Childrens Zone. The program was started to try and pull inner city children out of poverty, by expanding educational opportunites. Tough says that project shows that often times, overcoming poverty starts with changing the local mindset.

"What the Harlem Children's Project shows is you can create a vision of a pathway to a different way of life," Tough explained. "I think it can happen in a poor rural county in Maine. If you create a system that shows people and kids there is a pathway to a different kind of life, that can spread."

Organizers say when addressing child welfare issues, poverty appears to be the most pervasive factor in Maine communities. According to 2007 U.S. Census figures, 20% of Maine children under the age of five, live in poverty. Overall, 13% of the population live under the poverty level.