tually no more common than among the non-poor.” The solution, then, must lie within the micro-, exo- and macro- systems. Community organizations at the level of the exosystem can initiate mentoring, parent outreach, and conflict resolution programs to allow neighbors, family members, and peers at the level of the microsystem to provide each other with support. At the level of the macrosystem, our attitudes toward the poor must change, so that we no longer blame families and children for their poverty, but instead recognize the operation of larger socioeconomic forces. By helping families to break the cycle of poverty, rather than turning our backs on them, we will be able to protect our children and youth from violence.Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of child development clearly provides an effective framework for examining the complex problem of poverty in America and its implications for our children and youth. America currently ranks sixteenth among twenty-five industrialized nations in its “efforts to lift children out of poverty,” according to the Children’s Defense Fund. We are not doing enough to help OUR children. It is time for Americans to start acknowledging that children living in poverty are just as entitled to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” – including their rights to quality health care, adequate living conditions, and a safe environment - as children who are not poor. This means accepting responsibility for the current state of American children and youth. It means facing the hard truth that the child – and the child’s parents – do not stand alone, unaffected by outside forces, completely responsible for their poverty and deserving of their unfortunate situations. They are instead in the middle of a great number of “rings,” boundaries and obstacles, which were created by social and economic institutions and attitu...
