Next month, federal funding will end for the program called Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting. It pays for social workers and law enforcement to visit the homes of young, at-risk mothers. The goal is to strengthen those families. Milwaukee’s police chief is among those calling on Congress to renew the funding.
Congress first authorized the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program in 2010. It targets new mothers living in poverty and without much of an education. If they take part, workers visit regularly for about two years, and help the women learn parenting skills and put together a life plan. The hopes are that the home visits decrease the likelihood of child abuse and neglect, increase children’s school readiness and achievement and improve economic self-sufficiency. Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn says this sort of early intervention can also reduce crime.
“The evidence is overwhelming that that investments in young people in early childhood education, for example, in home visits and afterschool programs can prevent crime,” Flynn says.
Flynn says he and his staff looked into the past lives of a group of juvenile offenders with serious arrest records. He says police had arrested one young woman nearly a dozen times for crimes including robbery and car theft.
“She was in and out of juvenile institutions and group homes and she was a gang member. At age five, she was the victim of a first degree sexual assault by her mother’s boyfriend. That mother continues to date men prone to violence. She was characterized as living in a destabilized family and a hostile home environment. Her younger brother, also a gang member had been arrested for 10 felonies,” Flynn says.
While Flynn says that coming from an at-risk family does not mean a person will turn to a life a crime, the majority of criminals do come from disadvantaged homes. He says the home visit program helps combat problems that can start early. Since 2010, Wisconsin has received $27 million to support home visits. Betsi Smith is a nurse with Kenosha County’s program.
“In addition to education and support, we screen for depression, mental health concerns, and help to connect them with community resources. We encourage them to identify and pursue life goals,” Smith says.
Smith says last year in Kenosha County alone, nurses made more than 1600 home visits. She says without the program many more children would be stuck in unstable homes and possibly continue the cycle of generational poverty.
President Obama has proposed spending $500 million to keep the program going starting in 2016. Advocates say the government needs to act soon.
