Prevent Child Abuse New York's Blog

Children Need Real Health System Reform Now

The following action alert is from our friends at the Children's Defense Fund.

Your help is urgently needed to ensure that children are better off, rather than worse, in the final health reform legislation this year, and that specific child health system reforms are enacted to overcome bureaucratic barriers and inequities that continue to deny millions of uninsured and underinsured children the health care they need.

Join us in making sure that Congress enacts critical child health reforms.

Call your Representative and Senators RIGHT NOW and tell them to make sure that real health system reforms are put into place so that children will not be worse off than they are now. Specifically:

• No child currently enrolled in the Child Health Insurance Program (CHIP) should lose benefits or have higher costs when CHIP ends in four years;
• Bureaucratic barriers that currently keep 6 million eligible children out of CHIP and Medicaid must be removed to make sure every child can truly access coverage;
• Coverage must be affordable for families which means that cost sharing protections currently in place must be maintained; and
• All children must be guaranteed all medically necessary services from head to toe, including mental health and dental services, to maximize a child’s health and development.

To contact your Representative, call the Congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121.

Some important facts to remember: Children are the most cost-effective investment the nation can make. Insuring them costs one-third the cost of insuring working-age adults. An uninsured child costs communities $2,100 more than a child with Medicaid or CHIP. Children are the core of long-term health cost containment and prevention strategies. Every dollar invested in immunizing children saves $16 in later costs. Early detection and treatment saves billions: a timely doctor’s visit for asthma is about $100; a full blown asthma attack can cost $7,300 in emergency room and hospitalization costs.

A nation that does not stand for its children does not stand for anything and will not stand strong in the future. For more information and updates on what you can do to ensure real child health reform this year, please visit CDF’s website  or call CDF-NY at (212) 697-2323. 

Counting What Counts

The 20th annual KIDS COUNT Data Book provides a national and state-by-state look at the status of children in the United States. This year's companion essay (pdf) outlines a series of action steps to improve the nation's use of data in creating policies that improve outcomes for children and families.

The Data Book measures the educational, social, economic, and physical well-being of children against ten core indicators: the percent low birth-weight babies; infant mortality rate; child death rate; rate of teen deaths by accident, homicide, and suicide; teen birth rate; percent of children living with parents who do not have full-time, year-round employment; percent of teens who are high school dropouts; percent of teens not attending school and not working; percent of children in poverty; and percent of families with children headed by a single-parent. The Data Book also provides background information for each state, including demographic and family income data.

The Kids Count Data Center is a tremendously useful tool for advocates, allowing users to create their own maps, graphs, and charts for use in presentations or on websites.

Detailed information about children's well-being in New York State is found at NYS Kids' Well-being Indicator Clearinghouse (KWIC). Below is a map I created using KWIC's Interactive Map Builder showing data for children living in poverty in New York State.

New Yorkers to Testify at Federal Home Visiting Congressional Hearing

On Tuesday, June 9, Congressman Jim McDermott (D-WA), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support of the US House Committee on Ways and Means, will host a hearing to review proposals to provide funding for grants to states to support early childhood home visitation programs.

Several New Yorkers will be testifying, including representatives of the New York Education Begins at Home Coalition, and Cheryl D'Aprix of Starting Together (Healthy Families New York), Community Action Program of Madison County.

In announcing the hearing, Chairman Jim McDermott said, "Home visitation programs have a proven track record of increasing the chances that a child will have a safer, healthier, and more productive life. There is considerable interest in expanding these programs to reach more families. I look forward to working with all of my colleagues to advance a proposal that will achieve that goal."

From the press release:

"Early childhood home visitation programs provide instruction and services to families in their homes. These programs are designed to enhance the well-being and development of young children by providing: information on child health, development, and care; parental support and training; referral to other services; or a combination of these services. Typically visits begin during pregnancy or shortly after a child’s birth and may last until a child is age four. Home visits are conducted by nurses, social workers, other professionals or paraprofessionals."

In addition, on Tuesday June 2, Representatives McDermott, Danny Davis (D-IL) and Todd Platts (R-PA) introduced the Early Support for Families Act (HR 2667), more information here (note: type "HR2667" into the bill search box).

The bill, which will be the focus of Tuesday's hearing, would provide mandatory funding to states to create and expand early childhood home visitation programs. Under the legislation, funding would start at $100 million in 2010, increasing to $700 million by 2014. The bill would require a state match of 15% in the first year, 20% in the second, and a 25% match in the third. The bill builds off of previous bipartisan legislation that had been introduced in both the House and Senate that would support rigorously evaluated programs that utilize nurses, social workers, and other professionals and paraprofessionals to visit families, especially lower-income families, on a voluntary basis. If enacted, the bill would fulfill one of President Obama's first initiatives in the area of zero to five early childhood policy.

A growing body of research has found strong evidence that early childhood home visitation programs are effective in reducing the incidence of child abuse and neglect, and in improving child health and development, parenting skills, and school readiness.

Learn more about this legislation on PCANY's upcoming advocacy webinar on Wednesday, June 10th, 10:30am.

Take Action: Education Begins at Home Act

Senators Bond (R-MO), Murray (D-WA) and Clinton (D-NY, prior to leaving the Senate) recently reintroduced the Education Begins at Home Act (EBAH). EBAH would establish the first federal funding stream dedicated to early childhood home visitation services like Healthy Families America (HFA).

Benefits of Home Visitation:

• Home visitation delivers parent education and family support services directly to parents with young children, providing guidance on how parents can enhance their children’s development from birth through kindergarten entry.
• Home visitation is an effective, research-based and cost-efficient way to bring families and resources together and to ensure that all children have the opportunity to grow up healthy and ready to learn. 
• Quality early childhood home visitation programs lead to proven, positive outcomes for children and families, including improved school readiness, improved child health and development, improved parenting practices, and reductions in child maltreatment.

EBAH would provide $500 million over three years to help states establish or expand quality home visitation programs. Of the $500 million authorized in EBAH, $400 million would be provided to states on a formula basis to expand and enhance home visiting programs, while the remaining $100 million would be divided between two competitive grants to reach military families and families with English Language Learners.

TAKE ACTION NOW! Ask your senators to cosponsor EBAH.

We're Not Alone

We're not alone in recognizing that Healthy Families New York, Nurse-Family Partnership and other home visiting programs reduce incidents of child abuse and make a significant difference in getting infants off to a good start.

We're not alone in thinking the state budget shouldn't be balanced at the expense of our most vulnerable and most valuable resource—children.

Hundreds of sheriffs, police chiefs, district attorneys and crime survivors from across the state, through Fight Crime: Invest in Kids New York, agree and join us in opposing the governor's proposed budget cuts to these home visiting programs.

Read Onondaga County District Attorney William J. Fitzpatrick's letter to the Post-Standard.

And, please, urge the governor and your legislators to restore funding to these critical programs.

All Parents Can Use Support

This from Marion Wright Edelman's recent column in The Huffington Post:

Virtually everyone who has children wants to be a good parent, but some do not know how to do that, and many lack the support of extended family or community resources. So instead of judging or assigning blame when parents come up short in providing care and protection to their children, we should recognize that what many parents need is help.

We wholeheartedly concur. Edelman goes on to explain how home visiting programs can provide support and education to the parents who most need it. More here.

Where Do the Presidential Candidates Stand on Children's Issues?

On November 4, Americans will head to their polling places and elect the 44th President of the United States. For those interested in learning more about where Senators John McCain and Barack Obama stand on child welfare issues, including child abuse prevention, foster care, adoption, and improving conditions for at-risk youth, view this compilation of the candidates' plans.

Calling All Candidates: The Time to Address Children's Needs is Now

Prevent Child Abuse New York, New York Children's Action Network and other children's advocates will be gathering today on the Capitol steps in Albany for New York's Step Up for Kids Day. We are joining dozens of events being held across the country to urge candidates to address children's needs in their campaign. The rally in Albany is scheduled from 11 to 1 with the formal program at noon. The event is open to the public.

Here is a link to a Times Union op-ed highlighting children and the Step Up for Kids rally which appeared in Sunday's paper.

Our Kids Are Expected to Share. Why Aren't We?

Kids’ Share 2008: How Children Fare in the Federal Budget, a new report, looks at federal spending trends and tax policies that impact children and families, and finds that domestic spending on children in 2008 is unfortunately continuing to follow a downward trend. According to the report’s data, while federal expenditures overall continue to grow, the portion of domestic spending focused on children has steadily decreased over the last five decades, dropping a total of 22% since 1960. The report was issued by The Urban Institute, in partnership with the New America Foundation and with support from First Focus and the Annie E. Casey Foundation.

This report further supports the findings of Children’s Budget 2008, a publication released in April by First Focus which showed that since 2003, only one penny of every new non-defense dollar spent by the federal government has gone towards children’s programs.

In what he hopes will be a step towards reversing this trend of declining investment in children, Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) introduced the Children’s Budget Act (S. 3277) on July 16th. The bill would require the President to include in the Administration’s annual budget submitted to Congress a separate analysis of all spending on children’s programs, including a detailed breakdown of spending by agency, department, and initiative as well as an estimate of the portion of overall domestic spending being allocated to children’s programs.

Advocates of the legislation have noted that the law currently governing the requirements for the Administration’s annual budget request already includes similar specific instructions for other spending areas, such as a mandate requiring a separate analysis of homeland security spending, which means that implementing the Children’s Budget Act would be a simple addition to the law.

“We need to prioritize our children and currently that is simply not the case,” said Senator Menendez. “If we get a complete picture of how we spend on our children’s programs today, then we can work to ensure we are not shortchanging the vulnerable members of our society tomorrow.”

Help for Relatives Caring for Kids

Today's Rochester Democrat and Chronicle published a terrific essay about the countless challenges kinship caregivers face in accessing services, negotiating legal and education systems, and providing a safe home and nurturing environment to kids often coping with pain, trauma and loss.

The good news is that help may be on the way. Both houses of Congress are working on legislation that would provide federal funding for subsidized guardianship and kinship navigator programs.

The essay was written by Gerard Wallace, director of the New York State Kinship Navigator, a statewide program operated by Catholic Family Center in Rochester to provide information and resources to kinship caregivers.