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Melissa Hackett is the coordinator of the Maine Child Welfare Action Network and a policy associate at the Maine Children’s Alliance.
In Maine and across the nation, there is a movement to prevent child abuse and neglect by investing in families. This conversation also provides an opportunity to reflect on our collective responsibility to keep children safe.
The Maine Child Welfare Action Network (MCWAN) is proud of our commitment to the development and implementation of Maine’s Child Safety and Family Well-Being Plan. This plan establishes a framework for collective action to keep children safe by keeping families strong. The research and evidence is clear that ensuring families having what they need to provide safety and stability for their children prevents child abuse and neglect.
This means: providing economic and concrete support to families; improving access to supports and services; building partnership with families; promoting supportive communities; and improving coordination between state and community partners.
When families get support to address life’s challenges, it prevents crises and the need for more intensive and costly intervention from the state child welfare agency. It also prevents the trauma children experience when they are separated from their parents because of safety concerns.
If we want what’s best for children, we must each step forward and step up in our professional capacities and in our roles as friends, family members, and neighbors, to better and sooner support parents in navigating challenges.
The Be There for ME campaign and website was developed in partnership between MCWAN and the Maine Department of Health and Human Services. It provides a tangible opportunity to connect parents and caregivers to messages of support and places to start to find help. It also offers resources and tips for community members to support families.
There are also important state policy proposals to invest upstream to promote safety and stability for families. In Maine, 92 percent of all reports of suspected child abuse and neglect to the child welfare agency do not result in findings. That data shows we are missing a critical opportunity to develop a robust system of community support for families where concerns don’t rise to the level of a state child welfare agency intervention.
We strongly support funding for Be There for ME (LD 1060); bolstering the capacity of the network of prevention councils (LD 1061); and clarifying the definition of child abuse and neglect to distinguish from poverty (LD 1406). We also support proposals to address challenges to child safety related to housing, child care, food, health care, and access to substance use, mental health, and domestic violence services.
State policymakers should recognize these proposals are aligned with efforts to prevent child abuse and neglect, and will reduce the need for more costly state child welfare agency intervention.
In this time of fear and uncertainty around federal actions, we must consider the impact to child safety that results from executive orders, funding freezes, and funding cuts. Let us be clear: These proposals collectively threaten the foundation of family supports that keep children safe.
Picture your town without a library, a school, health care providers, farmers, and small businesses. These are all under threat right now. Proposed tax cuts for the wealthiest would be offset by cuts to public benefit programs that are a literal safety net for families experiencing hardship, and to many other services that benefit all families. These federal actions could drastically reshape the communities in Maine where families live, work, and raise their children.
If we care about kids, now is the moment to step up and step forward. Ask a parent or caregiver in your life how they are doing and offer to help. Find ways to volunteer to build more supportive communities through local events that bring people together and create relationships. Advocate at all levels for policies and investments in families and the communities they live in — because the way we keep kids safe is by supporting their families.
