Launch of ‘Childhood Begins at Home’ campaign

Here in Montgomery County, our Children and Youth program office continues to place tremendous focus on family engagement efforts to ensure that children are being adequately cared for in their homes and avoid foster care placement. That means embracing supportive programming that educates at-risk families on ways to avoid child abuse and neglect. It’s important to provide this type of support so all children in our county can live safe, happy, and productive lives.

Children learn best through teaching, discussing and through observing adults who model responsible, caring, and self-disciplined behavior. Our staff works directly with families and community resources to address risk factors and coordinate services to improve family conditions. Evidence-based home visiting programs provide families with the skills and confidence they need to be successful. In Montgomery County, families can benefit from several evidence-based home visiting programs proven to improve maternal and child health, prevent child abuse and neglect and improve family literacy and economic security. They include Early Head Start, Healthy Families America, Nurse-Family Partnership and Parents as Teachers.

Working in tandem with other community-based services, evidence-based home visiting programs can also help strengthen families grappling with substance use disorder, something far too many young families are struggling with locally and across the state. While home visiting is not a treatment program and should not be considered as an alternative to treatment, it is another protective mechanism for at-risk infants and young children.

Unfortunately, not nearly enough families have access to these programs and services. Evidence-based home visiting programs are primarily funded through state and federal resources, but we’re just scratching the surface of using them to their fullest potential.

Only 41 percent of children from birth to age 5 known to the child welfare system here in Montgomery County received the appropriate evidence-based home visiting services last year designed to reduce the likelihood of future child abuse and neglect.

Evidence-based home visiting programs can also help improve health outcomes, family economic self-sufficiency and literacy. However, in Montgomery County, only 10 percent of babies born on Medicaid received the appropriate evidence-based home visiting services following their birth last year. Only 4 percent of children living in low-income families benefited and 32 percent born to a mother without a high school diploma remain unserved.

When families benefit from these programs, they are better equipped to provide a home environment that is conducive to a healthy child’s development. These are the many reasons why I support evidence-based home visiting and Childhood Begins at Home — a statewide campaign designed to help policymakers and the public understand the value of evidence-based home visiting and effective ways to support parents.

I join the campaign in urging our state lawmakers to expand funding for these important services in the 2018-19 state budget with the goal of helping an additional 800 families across Pennsylvania get the support they need through evidence-based home visiting programs, as well as funds to strengthen staff training. The price tag — $6.5 million — would return near-term benefits to Montgomery County and many other communities.

Childhood Begins at Home has a powerful message that will deliver profound improvements in our communities through programs that we use every single day to help at-risk families and their children. More children deserve our help. We can do this by increasing state funding for home visiting programs.