Increasing Opportunity and Success for Children and Parents Through Evidence-Based Home Visiting Act

Floor Speech

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Madam Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding, and I want to express my deep appreciation for the opportunity to join in this advocacy for this very important bill.

One of the great frustrations I know I share is when we have to make choices, and I see people come to me and they want us to increase the funding for those who are on the front lines fighting for our country, to increase the funding for those who are suffering from diseases, to increase the funding to protect senior citizens in various capacities, and every one of them tears at your heartstrings.

That is why, to me, it is such an incredible accomplishment when you are able, at this particular period of time, with huge deficits, to be able to fight to make sure that we can retain the funding to drive a fundamental program. The chairman has done that in this case, and I find the arguments to double that to be just a Trojan horse, an impediment to helping us take a meaningful program and make sure that it is authorized and supported.

In April, I visited the Crozer-Keystone Community Foundation in my own district. The foundation operates MIECHV and uses the Nurse-Family Partnership model to serve women and families in Delaware County. The model enables nurses to conduct regular home visits for first-time mothers and their children who are less than 2-years-old. It is designed to improve prenatal health and outcomes, improve child health and development, and improve families' economic self-sufficiency.

The success is evident to the experience of the women and families in the programs. In fact, the Nurse-Family Partnership model has been shown to reduce child abuse by 48 percent, reduce emergency room visits for accidents and poisonings by 58 percent, and reduce behavioral and intellectual problems by age 6 by 67 percent.

A study found that $6 is returned to the community for every dollar it invests in the program. Did you hear that? For every dollar the community invests, they will get $6; so it is not wrong to ask our partners in the States to match this commitment. In fact, my own State of Pennsylvania, I am proud to say it has actually exceeded the matching because they know it works and it makes a true partnership with the States.

So I want to, once again, conclude by applauding the efforts of the chairman to position this in such a way for us to be able to move forward, to create the opportunity for this genuine partnership, to move on, on behalf of the--not programs just like the Nurse-Family Partnership, but the broad spectrum that are supported.

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