Time
For House Action On Child Welfare Funding!
April 29, 2004
BACKGROUND
In April, NASW sent an Alert regarding action in the Senate
on increasing funding for child welfare programs in the Keeping
Children and Families Safe Act, formerly the Child Abuse Prevention
and Treatment Act (CAPTA). Thanks to your efforts, 21 Senators
signed onto a letter in support of the increased funding. Now,
the action is in the House.
Reps. George Miller (D-CA) and Jim Greenwood (R-PA) are circulating
a "Dear Colleague" letter to all members of the U.S.
House of Representatives, asking them to sign a letter to the
chairman and ranking member of the Health and Human Services
(HHS) appropriations subcommittee, urging support for President
Bush's proposal to double funding for CAPTA basic state grants
for protective services and the community-based prevention
grants. The letter follows.
ACTION NEEDED
Please contact your members of the House of Representatives
and urge them to sign onto the Miller-Greenwood letter supporting
the President's budget on funding for child protection and
child abuse prevention.
Initial DEADLINE for sign-ons is Wednesday, May 12.
You can reach your Representatives through the Capitol
switchboard at 202-224-3121. Direct line numbers can be found
via NASW's Web site at http://63.66.87.48/cweb4/index.cfm?orgcode=NASW Scroll
to the bottom of the page and enter your zip code.
LETTER IN SUPPORT OF CHILD WELFARE FUNDING
Dear Chairman Regula and Ranking Member Obey:
We are writing in support of the President's request to increase
funding for the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA)
Title I basic state grant funding from $22 million in FY04
to $42 million in FY05 and for CAPTA Title II Community-Based
Grants for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect funding
from $33 million in FY2004 to $65 million in FY2005.
The nation's child welfare system has long been stretched
beyond capacity to handle the full scope of child maltreatment.
While report after report has been issued about a system sorely
in need of resources, funds for CAPTA programs have been nearly
frozen for a decade. Far too little attention is directed at
preventing harm to children from happening in the first place
or providing the appropriate services and treatment needed
by families and children victimized by abuse or neglect.
In 2002, according to the most recent HHS data, substantiated
cases of child abuse and neglect investigated by child protective
service agencies in the United States involved an estimated
896,000 children . Unfortunately, many of the victims of child
maltreatment get no attention to remediate the negative consequences
of maltreatment. States report that the child victims or their
families in close to half (41%) of the confirmed cases of child
abuse receive no treatment or services after the investigation.
Fatalities from child maltreatment remain high: an estimated
1,400 children die of abuse or neglect each year. Nearly 41
percent of those who died were infants under the age of one,
and three-quarters of the child abuse fatalities claimed the
lives of children under age 4.
CAPTA's Title I basic state grants help states strengthen
their child protection systems. Ninety percent of states report
difficulty in recruiting and retaining child welfare workers,
because of issues like low salaries, high caseloads, often
unsafe working conditions, insufficient training and limited
supervision, and the extremely high turnover of child welfare
workers. Nationally, average caseloads for child welfare workers
are double the recommended caseload.
CAPTA's Title II community-based prevention grants assist
states and communities to develop successful approaches to
preventing child abuse and neglect. CAPTA funds support the
development of such essential abuse prevention services as
support programs for new parents, parenting education classes,
crisis nurseries, hotlines, information on community resources,
home visiting services, sexual abuse prevention, mutual support
groups for parents, respite care for families with disabled
children and other family support services.
Billions of dollars are spent every year on foster care -
too often the only option for families in crisis. Very little
money is spent on the front-end, prevention programs. If we
could invest in proven prevention programs and strategies designed
at the local level to meet individual family and community
needs, we could reduce the expenditure for costly back-end
crisis services. Increasing funds for CAPTA's basic state grants
and community-based prevention grants will help in a modest
yet constructive manner to begin to address the current imbalance.
According to the Department of Health and Human Services,
the additional funds requested for FY05 will fund prevention
services, including parent education and home visiting for
an additional 55,000 children and families. Additional funding
for CAPTA state grants will shorten the time for the delivery
of post-investigative services by 40 percent and increase the
number of children receiving services by almost 20 percent.
It is time to invest additional resources to work in partnership
with the states to help families and prevent children from
being abused and neglected.
As the passage last year of the legislation reauthorizing
CAPTA demonstrates, an overwhelming bipartisan majority of
our colleagues already believe that funding to help states
and communities protect children and prevent child abuse and
neglect is a major concern. It is time to increase funding
for these programs to levels that will allow them to fulfill
their basic missions, and ultimately spare children from the
horror of abuse. We request that the Child Abuse Prevention
and Treatment Act receive $42 million for Title I basic state
grants and $65 million for Title II community-based prevention
grants.
Sincerely,
GEORGE MILLER
JIM GREENWOOD
AS ALWAYS, THANKS FOR YOUR ADVOCACY!
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