By Crystal Swann and Angela Knudson
June 29, 2009

Mayors convened at the Annual Meeting on June 13 to discuss issues facing America's cities, including high drop out rates among America's youth and the substance use treatment gap. The Children, Health, and Human Services Committee, chaired by Providence Mayor David Cicilline, engaged Mayors and several experts on how to address the issues facing cities today. Joining the Mayors was Dr. Jonathan Zaff, Vice-President of Research at America's Promise Alliance, and Dr. Josiah Rich, Professor of Medicine and Community Health at Brown Medical School.

Dr. Jonathan Zaff briefed Mayors on the Gallup Student Poll, a multi-year effort that engages students in grades 5-12 by measuring their hope for the future, well-being in the community, and engagement with the world. The poll captures youth opinion, an important but often missing part of dialogue surrounding dropout prevention and college readiness.

Also addressing the Mayors was Dr. Josiah Rich, who spoke of the alarming number of people with substance abuse problems who do not receive treatment. The Closing the Addiction Treatment Gap Initiative (CATG), an Open Society Institute $10 million national program, raises awareness of the substance abuse treatment gap and increases resources to close it. By mobilizing public support, the initiative hopes to increase public and private funding, broaden insurance coverage, improve efficiency in the treatment system, and educate people that addiction is a disease. Dr. Rich spoke of the 23 million Americans who suffer from drug and alcohol addiction, yet only one in ten receive treatment for it. Sadly, 21 million people are left without these vital services. Addiction is costly, and the American economy spends hundreds of billions of dollars on it every year. Aside from the personal healthcare needs of these individuals, workplaces, families, and communities share the burden of this expensive health condition. Addiction often leads to lost productivity, crime, broken families, expensive incarceration, and death. Investing in treatment generates a savings ratio of 12 to 1 in treatment costs, and would help the millions of people suffering from this unfortunate disease.

The Children, Health, and Human Services Committee adopted the following resolutions:

• Health Care for Children and Families — celebrates the reauthorization of SCHIP and encourages Mayors to continue the fight to see that all children have health insurance coverage.

• Expanding Investments in Coordinated Full-day Learning Strategies to Ensure the Healthy Development of Youth — calls for federal, state and local levels of government to invest in coordinated full day learning strategies that incorporate academic, social, emotional and physical activities to ensure the well-rounded and healthy development of youth.

• Supporting the Creation of the White House Task Force on Middle-Class Working Families — supports the creation of the White House Task Force on Middle-Class Working Families.

• Establishment of an Annual Mayors' "Kids' Day" Celebration — proclaims the twenty-fifth of June of every year to be Mayors' Kids' Day and urges members to institute Kids' Day recognition and activities in their own cities that honor the contributions of youth within their families and community.

• Poverty — adopts as its policy the actions called for by the mayors in the National Action Agenda on Poverty: A cabinet-rank position to direct, coordinate and promote poverty reduction programs.

• Executive Orders and Administrative Actions to Combat Poverty — adopts as its policy the executive orders and administrative actions called for by the mayors in the National Action Agenda on Poverty.

• In Support of Child Health and Nutrition — urges Congress to adopt a budget resolution that includes $20 billion over five years for the Child Nutrition Reauthorization — an investment that will enable school nutrition programs to meet their goal of providing nutritious, balanced meals to children.

• Investing In America's Communities — calls on Congress to reauthorize CSBG and to maintain flexibility to local areas to allow for a wide range of programs and strategies that meet the unique needs of the targeted communities.

• Revising the Federal Measure of Poverty — urges the federal government to revise the formula for calculating the federal poverty line so that it better reflects the amount that families must earn to meet the basic costs of daily life across America.

• Improving Access, Meal Quality, and Nutrition Through The Reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act (1) — urges Congress to make a substantial investment of funding in and simplification of program regulations for Child Nutrition Programs during the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act.

• Edible Gardens — urges mayors to develop, grow, and maintain edible gardens in parks, city hall land, and municipal community gardens.

• Support for the Administration's Health Care Reform Principles — supports and calls for the immediate enactment of the Administration's health care reform principles and agrees that comprehensive reform should reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government.

• Improving Access, Meal Quality, and Nutrition Through the Reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act (2) — urges Congress to make significant increases in all reimbursement rates, provide additional funding and adjust eligibility based on the local cost of living.

• Closing the Addiction Treatment Gap — calls on Congress to pass legislation expanding funding for alcohol and drug prevention, treatment, and recovery services for all who need them and to repeal discriminatory laws against people with addiction histories who have been in the criminal justice system.