New Orleans Media Shine Spotlight on Value of Home Visiting Programs to Prevent Child Abuse
Top Law Enforcement Brass Issue Plea for Home Visits: Law enforcement leaders from the New Orleans area held a news conference to raise public awareness about the link between child abuse and neglect and later involvement in crime.
They called on Louisiana policymakers to protect state funding for the Nurse-Family Partnership program, which helps at-risk mothers develop parenting skills and avoid abuse.
Fox 8 Live Reports: Childhood abuse may lead to crime (Video)
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
By Gwen Filosa / Staff Writer
The city’s top law enforcement officials Tuesday endorsed a program that sends registered nurses into the homes of troubled families raising a newborn for the first time, saying it can help reduce crime in the long run.
The Nurse-Family Partnership shows clear results in preventing future crime by reducing child abuse and neglect, according to a report released Tuesday by the anti-crime organization Fight Crime: Invest in Kids, whose members include over 5,000 police chiefs, sheriffs, prosecutors, and violence survivors.
“Violence breeds violence,” Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman said. “People who want a smaller jail and less violence, this is the best investment we can make.”
Gusman on Tuesday joined Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas, District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro, and Jefferson Parish Executive Assistant District Attorney Barron Burmaster in endorsing the home visit program, which is seeking $2.7 million in continued funding from Louisiana in order to receive newly available federal grants.
During home visits, nurses provide health-care tips and safety training to low-income families in 52 parishes.
Serpas and the others agreed that the service can, in turn, prevent abused children from growing up to continue a cycle of violence and neglect that can run for generations.
“Every day, 27 Louisiana children are victimized,” said Serpas, who has been involved with Fight Crime for about five years. “When children are raised in domestic violence they tend to replicate that behavior.”
More than 10,000 Louisiana children were abused or neglected in 2008, according to the Fight Crime report, “Reducing Crime by Preventing Child Abuse and Neglect,” which is available online at www.fightcrime.org in the site’s research section.
The voluntary home visits cut abuse and neglect in half, according to the study that reviewed the program in Elmira, N.Y., and children who did not participate in the program had twice as many convictions by age 19 as those in families who received
The new federal health-care bill includes money to expand such programs nationally, and Louisiana’s share of the funding in 2010 will be $1.5 million, according to Fight Crime.
Ronaele Holmberg, a local registered nurse, said that seven nurses in New Orleans visit up to 25 families each. She recalled meeting with a 16-year-old girl who had placed her newborn on a filthy floor, and teaching her how to properly mop the surface so that the baby would be safer.
“Every time I went to her house the rest of the time, the floor was always clean,” Holmberg said. “We are not all born with the same assets,” said Cyndy Rees, of the organization, which has 84 members in Louisiana.
Louisiana has had access to the Nurse-Family Partnership since 1999. In fiscal year 2010, it served more than 2,800 mothers in Louisiana — approximately 15 percent of those eligible, according to Fight Crime.
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