Volume 6, Number 9
In this Issue:
--Prevention Appropriations Update: Labor-HHS Vetoed, Congress Passes New Continuing Resolution
--Funding for Child Abuse and Neglect Registry Study Included in Labor-HHS Bill
--House and Senate May Resume Negotiations on SCHIP after Thanksgiving Recess
--Congress Reauthorizes Head Start -- Includes Child Abuse Prevention Provisions
Prevention Appropriations Update: Labor-HHS Vetoed, Congress Passes New Continuing Resolution
House-Senate Compromise on CAPTA Home Visiting Provision
Following through on a threat to veto any FY 2008 appropriations bills that exceed the Administration’s requested spending levels, the President vetoed the FY 2008 Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill earlier this month. This bill is the largest of the annual domestic spending bills, and it contains the majority of the funding for child abuse and neglect prevention programs. It would provide $150.7 billion in discretionary spending, which is $9.8 billion more than the President requested. The House attempted a veto override vote just prior to adjourning for the Thanksgiving recess, but fell two votes short of the two-thirds majority needed.
The Labor-HHS-Education spending bill provides funding for Prevent Child Abuse America’s prevention appropriations priorities: the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF), and the Social Services Block Grant (SSBG). The compromise vetoed by the President level-funded PSSF and SSBG at their FY 2007 levels and provided a $10 million increase to CAPTA. More details on CAPTA below.
Next Steps:
Congress has acted to buy more time in order to work on remaining appropriations measures with a second Continuing Resolution (CR), which will carry spending at FY 2007 levels until December 14th. Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has outlined a proposal to wrap the remaining 11 spending bills into one “omnibus” package that would split the overall difference between the President’s budget proposal and congressional Democrats’ spending plans. However, it not clear that there’s enough congressional support for this strategy. Another option being tossed around is a year-long continuing resolution that would keep funding at FY 2007 levels.
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House-Senate Compromise on CAPTA Home Visiting Provision
In his FY 2008 budget, the President requested a $10 million increase to CAPTA for competitive grants to states to invest in “nurse home visiting.” The Senate went along with the President’s request to limit the funding to home visiting programs that use nurses, while the House allowed for a range of evidence-based home visiting programs to be eligible. Prevent Child Abuse America supported the more inclusive language offered by the House.
The House and Senate included a compromise in the Labor-HHS conference report, stating:
“The conferees expect that the Administration for Children and Families will ensure that States use the funds to support models that have been shown, in well-designed randomized controlled trials, to produce sizeable, sustained effects on important child outcomes such as abuse and neglect. The conferees also recommend that the funds support activities to assist a range of home visitation programs to replicate the techniques that have met these high evidentiary standards. In carrying out this new initiative, the conferees instruct the Department to adhere closely to evidence-based models of home visitation and not to incorporate any additional initiatives that have not met these high evidentiary standards or might otherwise dilute the emphasis on home visitation.“ | |
Funding for Child Abuse and Neglect Registry Study Included in Labor-HHS Bill
The Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill vetoed by the President included a provision to fund a study that will determine the feasibility of establishing a national registry of substantiated child abuse and neglect cases. The study and the creation of the registry itself were originally authorized in the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, but the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has never been given the funding to initiate the provisions. The $500,000 provision now included in the Labor-HHS bill originated as an amendment offered by Senators Feinstein (D-CA) and Kyl (R-AZ) during Senate floor debate and was then accepted into the final conference report agreed to by the House and Senate.
The registry would be located at HHS and would be available to child protection authorities (and not to the general public) as a resource for tracking cases across states. If the funding is enacted, the feasibility study will address:
- costs and benefits of data collection standards;
- data collection standards currently employed by each State, Indian tribe, or political subdivision of a State;
- data collection standards that should be considered to establish a model of promising practices; and
- a due process procedure for a national registry.
House and Senate May Resume Negotiations on SCHIP after Thanksgiving Recess
Negotiations by the bipartisan group of House and Senate lawmakers attempting to find a compromise on legislation to reauthorize the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) have been reportedly stalled, but may start up again when Congress returns next week.
The latest version of a reauthorization bill (H.R. 3963) was passed by the House and Senate in late October but has yet to be sent to the President. As reported in the October Prevention Advocate, this bill includes several changes from the first reauthorization bill (H.R. 976) that was vetoed by President Bush in early October. The bill would expand the program by $35 billion over five years, paid for by an increase in the federal tobacco tax. This funding level would extend SCHIP coverage to approximately 4 million children in addition to the 6 million already covered by the program.
The ongoing negotiations have focused primarily on addressing a few key issues raised by Republicans who oppose the legislation in its current form. These are: ensuring that SCHIP is targeted to the lowest-income families first, developing strategies that would keep families from dropping private insurance coverage in favor of SCHIP coverage, and ensuring that illegal immigrants are prohibited from enrolling in SCHIP programs. However, more recently it has been reported that disputes over eligibility for Medicaid are now a primary obstacle standing in the way of a successful compromise. Some House Republicans reportedly want the SCHIP reauthorization bill to also include an income eligibility limit for Medicaid at 300% of the federal poverty level (FPL), which they say is intended to prevent states from expanding government health coverage to middle-income families through SCHIP or through Medicaid. There is currently no eligibility cap for Medicaid, while the SCHIP reauthorization legislation as it currently stands would cap eligibility for SCHIP at 300% of the FPL. Democrats in both the House and Senate have expressed opposition to making changes to Medicaid eligibility, particularly within the SCHIP legislation.
Next Steps:
While the bill as it stands has strong bipartisan support in the Senate, it would need to draw the support of at least 13 more House Republicans in order to override the President’s expected veto. Time is running out for lawmakers to pass an expansion of SCHIP this year. The program is currently being funded through a continuing resolution that expires December 14th. The time crunch and seeming stalemate have prompted some advocates to begin lobbying for a one or two year extension of the program in lieu of the full reauthorization. We will keep you posted on how this evolves in future Prevention Advocates.
Congress Reauthorizes Head Start - Includes Child Maltreatment Prevention Provisions
Just before leaving Washington for the Thanksgiving recess, Congress at long last passed a five-year reauthorization of the Head Start program. The Improving Head Start for School Readiness Act of 2007 (HR 1429) passed with strong bipartisan support in both chambers, by a vote of 381-36 in the House and 95-0 in the Senate. President Bush is expected to sign the measure.
Head Start is the nation’s principal early-childhood development program for low-income preschoolers. The program promotes school readiness by providing comprehensive education, health, nutrition, and other social services. Early Head Start, a component of Head Start created in 1995, promotes healthy prenatal outcomes for pregnant women, enhances the development of very young children, and promotes healthy family functioning. The last Head Start authorization was enacted in 1998 and expired at the end of FY 2003, though Congress has continued to fund it through the annual appropriations process. The new measure aims to improve the quality of Head Start teachers, tighten accountability, and to update the current program standards. Additionally, the new measure would change the income level at which families are eligible for Head Start from 100% of the federal poverty level to 130%. However, the neediest children would still be given priority.
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Child Maltreatment Prevention Provisions
Through the leadership of the National Child Abuse Coalition, of which Prevent Child Abuse America is a member, Congress included a number of amendments to Head Start to improve support for preventive services to families and children at risk of abuse and neglect. Prevent Child Abuse America supported the Coalition’s efforts, and we thank the Coalition for their leadership. The following details are excerpted from the National Child Abuse Coalition’s November 29th, 2007 Washington Memorandum.
The final Head Start bill, now awaiting the President’s signature, incorporates a series of those amendments proposed by the National Child Abuse Coalition to define the role of Head Start and Early Head Start in offering services to abused and neglected children and children at risk of maltreatment, and to their families, as follows:
- require attention in staff training, child counseling and other services for serving “children referred by child welfare agencies,” “children from families in crisis,” and “children who are exposed to chronic violence or substance abuse”,
- require the involvement, with Head Start, in “communitywide strategic planning” of agencies providing such services as “family support services, child abuse prevention services, and protective services”,
- offer to parents of Head Start and Early Head Start children, directly or through referral, parenting skills training, parent support and parent-mentoring, training in basic child development, and in-home visitation,
- require collaboration in planning with the state agency responsible for administering the basic state grant program of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, including “formal linkages” with Early Head Start,
- develop a strategic plan which enhances collaboration and coordination with child protective services and services for children referred to Head Start by child welfare agencies,
- training for Head Start “personnel providing services to children determined to be abused and neglected” or “to children referred by or receiving child welfare services,”
- developing and disseminating new ideas and approaches for addressing through Head Start services the needs of low-income preschool children who have been abused or neglected, and
- report to Congress on the attention given in Head Start and Early Head Start programs to children in foster care and children referred by a child welfare agency.
Another provision included in the final measure, not among those proposed by the National Child Abuse Coalition, was authored by Rep. Danny Davis (D-IL) to establish standards for training, qualifications and the conduct of home visits for home visitor staff in Early Head Start programs. Standards would address promoting parents’ ability to support the child’s development, parent education, helping parents promote literacy, ascertaining the health and developmental services the family needs, helping families coping with crisis, and the relationship of well-being of pregnant women to early child development.
The report on the Head Start bill filed by the Senate HELP Committee included extensive discussion acknowledging the important role played by Head Start and Early Head Start programs through the comprehensive services provided to young children and their families in preventing the abuse and neglect of children and in protecting children and ameliorating the affects of maltreatment they may have already suffered.
Similarly, the report of the House Committee on Education and Labor includes a discussion of the crucial early years in a child’s development, referencing findings from neuroscience which suggest that “the ages of birth to three constitute the most critical period for a child’s brain growth.” | |
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