Dear Mayor Land, My name is Tina Clevenger and I am writing today as a constituent and concerned citizen of the city

of Dunlap for the people who live in poverty in our rural town, specifically the parents of small children. You may already know that there are many residents of Dunlap who live well below the poverty threshold. According to the United States Census Bureau, approximately eighteen percent of families in Dunlap live below the poverty line. Poverty is a debilitating circumstance that does not discriminate against age, gender, or race and has numerous crippling effects on the people who suffer from this financial enigma. Some of the many side effects of poverty would include anxiety, depression, and an overall sense of hopelessness. With this in mind, parents that live in destitution are unable to adequately cope with the economic stressors that they face on a daily basis. As a result, those stressors start a chain reaction of negative occurrences that perpetuate the vicious cycle of poverty. In fact, these parents pass the torch of poverty on to their children, which is better identified as generational poverty. This passing of the torch can logically be justified for two reasons. The first is that these destitute parents are incapable of properly coping with the devastating effects that poverty has on every person in the family. Consequently, because of their inability to appropriately manage the ongoing stressors, they could possibly turn to drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism or withdraw from society all together. As you may know, this adds to an ever increasing burden that our community must pay for. The second is that they lack the proper life skills and knowledge that would allow them to escape from their problematic circumstance. As a matter of fact, when generational poverty is handed down from parents to their offspring, it makes it even more difficult to break the cycle.

In order to break the cycle, there needs to be a greater focus on educating these parents. Our goal should be to save them from the damaging influence that poverty has on them and their children. For example, when their basic needs cannot be met, such as electricity, clothes or going to the doctor, they encounter severe mental and financial stressors that they are not equipped to deal with properly. These stressors can then cause them to respond to their life and children with negative parenting styles such as maltreatment. This is a traumatic and common occurrence within families who are destitute. Additionally, the maltreatment that their children receive may cause them to experience negative parenting thus resulting in dysfunctional behaviors, academic failure, and worst of all, repeating the cycle. This cycle becomes a continuation of failure and insecurity that is problematic for both the parents and the children. For instance, abused children become socially dysfunctional, which causes difficulties for them academically. The fact that they are behaviorally challenged at school results in their inevitable academic failure. Subsequently, this failure will enable poverty to be continued on throughout the generations. However, this cycle can be broken which would satisfy not only our moral obligation to help those who are less fortunate, but to also create a means to lessening the financial burden that affects every taxpaying citizen. Therefore, the purpose of this letter is to petition you as the Mayor of Dunlap to support a feasible solution for breaking the cycle of generational poverty. Consequently this will change the course of poverty in the many lives of our impoverished community. Accordingly, I present you with the idea of the development and implementation of parental intervention programs. These programs should be specifically designed to target the numerous challenges that keep families imprisoned in an impoverished life. To start with, we need to develop a program that

will educate parents on the life skills that are most crucial in alleviating generational poverty in our town. Some of those life skills would include parenting education, finding viable employment, and mental health treatment. First, we must dedicate some quality time in assisting parents with overcoming their circumstances by building their parental competency and confidence. This is extremely vital in our quest because many of the parents living in poverty did not learn proper parenting skills from their parents. It would be safe to say that parents tend to raise their children according to how they were raised, so parents in poverty will do what they know how to do. Therefore, establishing parenting classes that focus on anger management, appropriate discipline styles, and reward systems will enable impoverished parents to assume a parenting role that is unfamiliar to them yet beneficial for the family. Research by public health Professors from the University of South Florida proved that when parents completed parental intervention programs which focus on parenting skills, they experienced positive changes in their attitudes and behaviors toward their children. As these positive changes take place, parent competency and confidence increases and the parental bond grows between the child and parent strengthening the family as a unit. This will help to eliminate dysfunctional behaviors in the child creating an opportunity for success in all areas of their life. Another life skill that is extremely useful in breaking the cycle of generational poverty is to assist these parents with obtaining viable employment. This tool is invaluable to someone who is not formally educated. This program would include evaluating the degree of work related skill sets, education, and former employment history to determine the appropriate job placement. After determining their qualifications we would then offer assistance on updating, adding or building skill sets and education to make them a valuable asset to the work force. Consequently,

this will give them with the confidence and proficiency needed to obtain a sustainable job that they may never have considered themselves qualified for. Lastly, treating indigent parents who need the support for mental health disorders such as depression, anxiety, or drug and alcohol dependence will be most constructive in the process of breaking the cycle of generational poverty. These disorders are a byproduct of upbringing and the unrelenting poverty that continuously surrounds them. With this in mind, if these disorders are left untreated, the parents will not cope with them appropriately. Consequently, the parents dysfunctional behaviors become a social norm to their children. In fact, it may result in the children mimicking their parents thus repeating the cycle. Thus, these parental intervention programs will provide needy families with counseling from highly trained counselors and physicians on life subjects such as how to manage stress, deal with anxiety, or break free from drug and alcohol dependency. With your help, it would be possible to develop and implement these programs in our community. They would provide destitute families with the necessary tools to combat the devastating side effects of poverty that have been listed above. These tools are not only crucial in breaking the cycle of poverty, but it will also supply these people with a sense of hope for bettering themselves, their children, and their community. Furthermore, if we do not implement these parental programs then the harsh effects of poverty will end up costing our community and citizens more money in the long run. Therefore, we must establish these programs immediately to offset the ever increasing harmful effects of poverty. In conclusion, poverty not only debilitates a persons ability to provide the basic necessities for themselves and their families, but it also disables them socially, mentally, and

physically. These difficulties not only affect the parents, but they also have a most devastating effect on their children as well. I am confident that I have provided the sufficient evidence needed for you to take action against poverty in our town of Dunlap. We must take a deliberate stance on alleviating poverty as the number of people in poverty will only increase in number as time progresses. We have a powerful opportunity to empower those who are less fortunate by educating them and giving them the tools necessary to allow them to rise up to their full potential. There is no wealth like education and no poverty like ignorance. Ali ibn Abi Talib