Prevention Policy in Action
By Jyll Walsh, DrPH, Assistant Director
Concrete supports that help families meet their most basic needs are essential to preventing child abuse and neglect. Understanding this relationship, we have long prioritized connecting families to resources through FindHelpGA.org. But we know that for many situations and in many areas of our state, the resources needed to help families thrive are slim or simply do not exist.
“Eliminating prevention funding is not cost-saving—it’s life-threatening”
– Dr. Melissa Merrick, CEO & President Prevent Child Abuse America
The proposed federal budget makes devastating cuts to family support programs that are already difficult to access. The budget also outlines cuts directly to ACEs, child sexual abuse research, and child abuse prevention.
Based on the budget blueprints moving through Congress, these are a few of the programs at risk of being greatly reduced:
- Medicaid: Medicaid provides health coverage to many low-income households. Medicaid and PeachCare for Kids (CHIP) provide health coverage for HALF of all children in Georgia, roughly 1.4 million children. It also covers 46% of births in Georgia. View More.
- Social Services Block Grant: SSBG aims to help people achieve self-sufficiency and prevent abuse and neglect. View More.
- Temporary Assistance for Needy Families: TANF provides states with flexible funding to support various programs aimed at reducing poverty and promoting self-sufficiency. View More.
- Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program: SNAP assists over 950,000 Georgians to put food on the table. Every $1 in SNAP generates about $1.50 in local economic activity – supporting grocers, farmers, and rural economies. View More.
We challenge you to think about preventing child abuse and neglect in terms of policy, and to consider the political determinates of family wellbeing.
Policies can promote or hinder a caregiver’s ability to nurture and create stable environments for their children. We need people to see the connection between policy and prevention. Here are just a few examples of policies that have been shown to reduce child abuse and neglect.
- For each additional month that low-income mothers receive a childcare subsidy, it is associated with a 16% decrease in the odds of a neglect report and 14% decrease in the odds of a physical abuse report.
- States with more generous SNAP policies experienced large reductions in CPS reports, fewer confirmed reports, and fewer foster care placements. For every 5% increase in the number of families receiving SNAP benefits was associated with an 8% to 14% reduction in CPS & foster care caseloads.
- For states that newly expanded Medicaid in 2014, it was associated with a 16% reduction in the average rate of child neglect reports for children birth to age 5 when compared to states that did not expand Medicaid.
- In fact, Medicaid expansion is a key strategy for addressing housing instability for people with low incomes. Evictions fell by 20% in Medicaid expansion states compared to non-expansion states.
If we truly believe in the promise of America’s children, we must fund programs that protect their safety, nurture their potential, and support the communities working tirelessly on their behalf. Cutting these vital investments ignores the evidence, abandons vulnerable children, and undermines the very science of prevention.
State advocacy organizations to follow:
