Flynn calls for action on visiting nurse program
Milwaukee’s police chief and a former executive at A.O. Smith called on Congress to act quickly and re-up funding for a home visiting programs for at-risk mothers.
Chief Edward Flynn and David Romoser urged federal lawmakers to reauthorize the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting program on Tuesday.
A key initiative of the program is the voluntary Nurse-Family Partnership that connects at-risk mothers with a nurse, who serves as a mentor on child-rearing until the baby reaches age 2.
The federal home visiting program and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) expired Sept. 30 — about the same time Congress tried unsuccessfully to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.
“The research is on our side: highquality home visiting programs decline child abuse and neglect,” said Romoser, a former senior vice president at A.O. Smith.
That has an important implication for public safety because research has shown childhood abuse and neglect have an active impact on future criminality, Flynn said.
“There’s no way around it,” he said. “It’s a tragic truth.”
Studies have shown children who are abused or neglected are twice as likely to commit a crime by age 19 compared to similar children from the same backgrounds who did not experience abuse or neglect, Flynn said.
Flynn and Romoser are members of the Council for a Strong America, a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates for policies to help children become productive adults. The group has long pushed for investment in children as a way to prevent crime and boost economic development.
In Wisconsin, state officials have worked out “multiple contingency plans” to try to make the existing federal funding last into next year, said Kara E. Kempski, associate director of federal policy for Council for a Strong America.
But with funding uncertain, enrollment could freeze and home-visiting providers, particularly nurses, could start to look for other jobs, Flynn said.
The federal program typically has had a $400 million budget, most of which gets funneled to local visitation programs. Last year, home-visiting providers made more than 23,000 home visits in Wisconsin, including about 5,500 in Milwaukee.