Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

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Mr.DEWINE. Mr. President, today I join with Senator MURRAY to introduce the ``Improving Head Start Access for Homeless and Foster Children Act of 2005.'' The problems children who are homeless and in foster care face are daunting. I am grateful to Senator MURRAY for her leadership in this area. She and I worked on coordinating and improving access to services for homeless and foster children in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and I am glad to have had the opportunity to work with her again on this issue.

Who is more vulnerable than a child, under the age of five, living on the street or in a shelter? Who is more vulnerable than a child under five who has been abused and neglected? Just because young children cannot speak to their needs does not mean that they should have no voice. The hundreds of thousands of children in the United States who experience homelessness, separation from their parents, or abuse and neglect each year are in need of our help to ensure their needs are met. Unfortunately, their voices are all too often not heard and their needs go unmet. The bill we are introducing today would serve as one more step, one move closer, to ensuring homeless and foster children are visible and their voices audible.

In the United States, on any given day, more than half a million children are in foster care, 20,000 of whom are in my home State of Ohio, alone. Of this group, 27 percent are age five and--under. In 2003, we also know that more than 900,000 children were found to be victims of child abuse or neglect. Children as young as six months old can suffer from long-term effects after experiencing or witnessing trauma. More than half of the children in foster care experience developmental delays. Children in foster care have three to seven times more chronic medical conditions, birth defects, emotional disorders, and academic failures than children of similar socioeconomic backgrounds who never enter foster care.

In its 2000 Report to Congress, the U.S. Department of Education noted that only 15 percent of preschool children identified as homeless were enrolled in preschool programs. In comparison, 57 percent of low-income preschool children participated in preschool in 1999. These statistics are especially troubling in light of the fact that over 40 percent of children living in shelters are under the age of five--an age when early childhood education can have a significant positive impact on a child's development and future academic achievement.

Head Start began in 1965, and since its inception, it has served more than 22 million of America's poorest children. This important program has helped these children build the skills they need to succeed in school and provide them with the services they need to be healthy and active in society. With its comprehensive services and family-centered approach, Head Start often offers the most appropriate educational setting for children and families experiencing homelessness and for children in foster care. By providing comprehensive health, nutrition, education, and social services, Head Start helps provide for the needs of these vulnerable children. And, with the passage of this bill, Head Start could help even more. Yet, programmatic and policy barriers continue to limit their access to and participation in Head Start. Some barriers to Head Start access are related to lack of coordination with child welfare agencies, high mobility, lack of required documentation, and lack of transportation.

Our bill would encourage Head Start grantees to reduce these barriers by directing them to increase their outreach to homeless and foster children. It also would encourage coordination between Head Start grantees and community service providers and homeless and foster children. It would increase the coordination for these populations as they transition out of Head Start to elementary school and increase reporting requirements. And, it would allow homeless children to be automatically eligible for Head Start.

Again, I thank my colleague, Senator MURRAY, for her leadership on this issue. I look forward to working with her to incorporate these ideas into the Head Start reauthorization bill currently being considered in the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

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