OFFICIALS LEGISLATION INTEREST GROUPS PUBLIC STATEMENTS COMMITTEES VETOES

CAPTA Reauthorization Act of 2010

Floor Speech

Date: Dec. 8, 2010
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Minors and Children

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Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I rise in support of Senate bill 3817, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act Reauthorization of 2010.

This bill reauthorizes the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, and the Adoption Opportunities Act. This is a narrowly tailored and responsible reauthorization for these important laws to update and improve these programs that help protect children and their families from violence.

This bill maintains current funding reauthorization levels and does not add any new programs. It does, however, make some good policy changes that will help protect children in need, help abused and neglected children with special needs find new families faster, and help local governments coordinate efforts to protect these children better.

One of the policy changes made in this bill is to support training and collaboration between child protective services and domestic violence service providers. This collaboration will help prevent child abuse and neglect through initiatives such as differential response, which allows professionals to assess children and families' needs without requiring a determination that a maltreatment has occurred.

This legislation also includes training for professionals on best practices to meet the needs of children with disabilities and supports better links between child protective services and disability groups to improve diagnosis and assistance to these children.

The bill provides technical assistance and training on domestic violence to State and local agencies and puts an increased emphasis on prevention of family violence, including dating violence.

This bill is a responsible reauthorization that modernizes these important programs and does so without increasing the authorization levels or adding new Federal programs. This reauthorization will help States and local governments protect our most vulnerable citizens through better coordination and training.

This is a good, responsible reauthorization, and I urge my colleagues to support it.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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