Cops, Nurses United on Health Care Overhaul Facet
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July 13, 2009
ALBANY, N.Y. - A nationwide organization of law enforcement professionals is calling on Senate Finance Committee members, including Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, to expand early childhood home nurse visitation programs. Their goal is to help prevent child abuse and neglect, which often lead to criminal behavior later in life.
Rochester pediatrician Jeff Kaczorowski works with his city's arm of the Nurse Family Partnership, a home nurse visitation program for low-income, first-time parents. He welcomes the support for that program by a group of police officers, sheriffs and prosecutors known as Fight Crime Invest in Kids, although he admits it may seem like a curious alliance: baby nurses and law enforcement professionals.
"You think, 'How are these babies going to jail?' and the answer is they're not, of course, going to jail - but what happens in to them in early childhood is a really important predictor of how kids do subsequently."
Meredith Wiley, state director of Fight Crime Invest in Kids New York, says her group believes that home visitation programs should be bolstered by possible health care overhaul efforts because helping needy, first-time parents during the first two years of parenthood can ease criminal justice problems in the long run.
"It gets at early child abuse and neglect, and we know that there's a very strong correlation between child abuse and neglect and later crime."
Wiley cites studies such as one that showed, by age 15, a 60 percent reduction in crime among kids who had come through the Nurse Family Partnership.
Kaczorowski says those concerned about saving money while at the same time improving America's health care system should recognize the value of home visitation programs.
"Nurturing kids early on has a myriad of positive effects that save us all dollars in terms of health care, save us all dollars in terms of criminal justice."
Backers of home visitation programs are calling on Sen. Schumer, among others, to include them in the health care overhaul under consideration. Opponents have indicated they will object to money earmarked in at least one of the reform proposals for what they call mandatory spending to educate parents on "skills to interact with their child."
The bipartisan "Education Begins at Home Act," which will provide the first federal funding dedicated to supporting home visitation, is S667 in the Senate and HR2343 in the House of Representatives.