Serving as Canyon County’s prosecuting attorney is an honor. And part of the duty of my office is prosecuting crimes that can be shocking, infuriating, and tragic.
Child abuse is all three.
Abuse and neglect of children is a crime that can ruin lives across multiple generations. Yet, in many cases, it is also a crime that parents could have avoided by engaging with community resources to help them build stronger families and healthier children. That is why Fight Crime: Invest in Kids is so important. They are dedicated to supporting evidence-based solutions. Working with this organization has helped me learn more about the critical resource to fight child abuse and neglect: voluntary home visiting.
Abuse and neglect often stem from a lack of understanding about caring for infants and toddlers. In these cases, families could have avoided tragic circumstances if they had the necessary tools and knowledge.
Programs such as Fight Crime: Invest in Kids and The Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) pair a trained professional, such as a nurse, with a family, and they often serve the most vulnerable families in our community where they are likely to have the greatest impact.
Voluntary home visiting programs give parents the guidance, preparation, tools, and access to community services to engage in raising young children, thereby working to break the cycle of abuse and neglect. Parents, in turn, can then use these resources to stimulate healthy infant and toddler development.
While voluntary home visiting yields tremendous benefits, federal funding for these programs is under urgent threat. The Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) federal funding stream will expire on Dec. 16 unless Congress acts to reauthorize it.
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This matters here in Idaho, where hundreds of Idaho families will lose access to home visiting in MIECHV expires. It would devastate the Idaho families who are diligently engaged in raising a strong family but are already dealing with funding levels that fall short of our state’s needs.
How bad is this shortfall? A just-released fact sheet from Council for a Strong America highlights the grim reality that only 537 families – less than 4% of Idaho’s over 14,000 high-priority families – receive home visiting services. And due to MIECHV’s minimal funding for tribal programs, none of Idaho’s five federally-recognized tribes currently receive funding.
But Congress now has an opportunity to change all of that.
The Jackie Walorski Maternal and Child Home Visiting Reauthorization Act of 2022 is currently making its way through the legislative process. The strongly bipartisan bill recently passed unanimously out of the House Committee on Ways & Means.
The Act would not only reauthorize MIECHV, but it would also significantly increase overall MIECHV funding over five years, including here in Idaho. Its passage would retain and strengthen the home visiting workforce and allow programs to continue virtual home visits with at least one in-person visit per year. It would also double the amount of tribal funding set aside, which would allow Idaho’s Native American communities to have a chance to access home visiting programs.
Part of the mission of the Canyon County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office is to protect the community, which includes children. Home visiting programs help by providing vulnerable families across our state with a better opportunity to avoid abuse and neglect while simultaneously giving their infants and toddlers a healthier, more supportive environment to grow.
I urge Congress to pass the Jackie Walorski Act before the funding deadline of Dec. 16.
