Characteristics of At-Risk Children
AED/201
LaShaun Cummings
July 28, 2013

In the United States many students face many problems or terrible conditions in their lives at home, school and in life in general. These problems and conditions can affect students in such a big way when it comes to schoolwork or academic success. Many schools nationwide have set up programs or assistance to help these students succeed despite the problem or condition they are forced to face.
Not all students may encounter a problem in school, but some encounter multiple problems. The types of problems and conditions include changing families, poverty, violence, abuse of alcohol and/or drugs, suicide, and child abuse. These are serious problems that many students face in today’s world, which can seriously affect academic success. Students who face one or more of these problems is said to be “at-risk” for academic failure (Axia College, 2005). The characteristics of students placed at-risk are a low SES, inner city, male, transient, minority, non-native English speaker, and divorced families (Axia College, 2005).
The only way a school, district, or state can do something about the at-risk students is to assist the needs of these students as much as possible. Many schools, districts, and states have set up special programs for at-risk students, including anything from afterschool programs to housing assistance. Usually the programs assist one of the characteristics of at-risk students to assist these students for their particular problem.
I decided to take this assignment to a personal place. I was once an at-risk student. I was suicidal when I was in Junior High School. I was forced to go through an anger management class because I was very hot tempered. I was also forced to go through counseling with a guidance counselor from the local charter school. Being suicidal was one of the biggest battles I fought in my life this far. At the time there weren’t a lot of programs available for students such as myself. The programs available to me were all programs that dealt with everything other than my suicidal thoughts and feelings. Since then a few programs have been created. These new programs are helpful to the true problem that many suicidal teens have. They don’t force them to hide their feelings but instead, they make them pull them to the surface. Being suicidal is based on life situations that you feel are not changeable. You can be suicidal because of the struggle people (i.e. family, peers, and close friends) around you are in the midst of. A mother that is depressed will transfer depression to her children. Children who don’t know how to deal with depression will feel heavier than they should. Being suicidal can come from all other categories of being an at-risk student. Suicide can be affiliated with poverty, family change, sexuality, or abuse. Most of all suicide is affiliated with depression. All these things tie together. According to the Daily News of New York, 1 in 6 high school students have thought of suicide. 1 in 12 students has actually attempted suicide in 2012. (www.nydailynews.com) Students have admitted to wanting to end their lives because of bullying, family issues, and social media (which is tied in to bullying via the internet). After discovering that the numbers of suicidal youth was so high I was interesting in finding out what was available to them to help them through their rough patch. I have found in my own community there was only one organization that helped suicidal youth. It wasn’t anything created by my city itself but by the churches in the community. I could not find anything on the internet that told of the works the churches do because of the lack of resources from the churches themselves. I did however sit down with a local pastor and ask them what their church does for at-risk students with this issue. Pastor Bowen has been ministering in Plainfield, NJ for over 35 years. He is an active member of Plainfield’s Recreational Sports Organization and a 5th grade teacher at one of Plainfield’s public schools. He was born and raised in Plainfield and he raised his children in the same home he was raised in. Pastor Scott Bowen let me know that his church has an organization called “Speak Life” at his church. It is an AA style meeting for suicidal youth to talk about their problems and not act on what they believe they should do to solve them. He puts emphasis on the fact that he may be a pastor but the last thing he is doing to these children is bible bashing them. He tells me that “the children who are suicidal are battling with speak life and not death. They don’t know what it means to “live” because their parents are putting too much on them. They hear too much and see too much and the end result of that is they carry too much. We try to teach them that even though life may seem down now, there is always light at the end of the tunnel. You just have to be strong enough to fight through the rain to see the sunshine.” Being that the program I found is in a local church it is a little difficult for it to be big in number. It is beneficial to those that found it but what about the children that do not feel comfortable entering in the church? Pastor Bowen told me that he holds his meetings in the church because he does not have to pay for his own church as a venue. When he gets extra cash he pays for a venue so that he can reach more students. Sometimes local schools will allow him to use the classrooms as meeting places when they feel that his program will help students they are seeing signs of suicide in. I believe that Plainfield needs more programs like “Speak Life”. I think that if we would start up more programs for children to have someone to talk to that they may know and/or trust that the number of suicidal children would decrease. This assignment has encouraged me to think up my own ways to reach out to children that fight the same fight I fought when I was in their shoes. I have actually recently became a part of Pastor Bowen’s guest list to speak at his meetings. I am hoping to gain a lot more information on this topic and hopefully find other programs that help this problem and others.

References http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/1-12-teens-attempted-suicide-report-article-1.1092622 Ch. 4: Socioeconomic Status and School Success (p. 134)