On Wednesday, November 2 there was a Capitol Hill briefing on the home visiting program, MIECHV (Maternal Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting). The target audience included Capitol Hill staff from both houses and both parties. The goal of the briefing was an early education of congressional staff on the program and how it works. The
Late last month the White House Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Parity Task Force released an important and long-awaited report addressing mental health parity in health care plans. The task force is the result of a March 2016, presidential order creating the task force to build on recent changes in federal law and recent
A new Child Trends survey of state child welfare spending shows a slight decrease in funding between 2012 to 2014 with a slightly bigger decrease in federal spending. The survey showed a continued pattern of great variations across the fifty states. A pattern that has existed since the first such surveys provided detail on spending
For the states that raised objections to parts of the Families First Act, specifically California, New York, Texas and Wyoming, the Child Trends survey gives some perspective. California and New York which raised serious concerns over the re-structuring both draw-down and spend significant amounts on child welfare. In 2014 California spent slightly more than $4
Massachusetts has reported some new and detailed information on the impact of substance abuse on child abuse reports. The data, reported recently by the Boston Herald indicates that within a six month period substance abuse was a factor in 14,000 cases, or 30 percent, of the 47,700 total reports of abuse and neglect the state
There was no news regarding the passage of the Family First Prevention Services Act, (HR 5456, Conference Report 114-628) as time in this session winds down to a pre-election pause. There were on-going discussions regarding potential amendments and verbal or written assurances to fix the legislation but there did not seem to be any clear
While a Senate bipartisan bill to reauthorize the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) has been held up in the Senate by Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), the House of Representatives approved a bipartisan bill last Thursday on H.R. 5963, the Supporting Youth Opportunity and Preventing Delinquency Act of 2016. The bill was voted out of
KPJR films along with Prevent Child Abuse America held a Capitol Hill briefing, Resilience: The Biology of Stress and the Science of Hope. The briefing focused on a new documentary on child abuse and neglect but included a panel discussion on prevention of child maltreatment. Resilience is a documentary that premiered at the Sundance Film
On Tuesday, September 20, the Urban Institute was the scene for a discussion of the 10th annual report on how federal spending for children’s programs is doing in Washington DC budgeting. The Kids Share Report and a panel discussion that accompanied the release of the report suggests that children are not doing well, at least
On Thursday, September 22, the Brookings Institute hosted a day long discussion, The 20th anniversary of welfare reform: Lessons and takeaways., Along with the Brookings Institution, the University of Kentucky Center for Poverty Research. The daylong session broke out the analysis and discussion along the lines of, child well-being, marriage and families, work and poverty,