From Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children (http://www.papartnerships.org):
We recently joined our partner Fight Crime: Invest in Kids to advocate for the expansion of evidence-based home visiting and promote its new report, Preventing Crime Through Voluntary Home Visiting. District Attorneys and policymakers – including Sens. Rafferty and Regan – joined PPC, Fight Crime and other stakeholders at a press event to release the report.
The law enforcement community supports home visiting, having seen the impact these services can have on families involved with some of their worst cases: those involving child abuse and neglect. Studies of home visiting models show that participation in the programs cut abuse and neglect of at-risk children nearly in half.
And while Gov. Wolf proposed an investment of almost $9 million in evidence-based home visiting in his budget, the budget bill that moved out of the House in April did not contain this proposal.
Sen. Rafferty said it best: “Whether we get to the governor’s number – we’re certainly not going to be at the House’s number – we’ll be somewhere we know we can sustain and will really be beneficial to help our kids.”
PPC will continue to push to make this happen, but we need your help. Go to http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/o/51288/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=22257 to send a message to your state legislators asking them to prioritize increased funding for evidence-based home visiting in the 2017-18 state budget.
Benita J. Campbell
We’ve had far too many cuts in human services while allowing the wealthiest Pennsylvanians and corporations to freeload of the rest of us. Peace officers know the benefit of this home visiting program. So if you hate poor people and love law and order (especially for poor people), at least listen to the police who interact with them. And don’t think you are without contempt for the least of us while you are cutting their life sustaining services year after year after year–because the budget is a huge measurement of whom you respect and whom you don’t.