Janet Napolitano on Families & Children

	Janet Napolitano on Families & Children Democratic AZ Governor; Designee for Secretary of Homeland Security

Reform and additional funds for Child Protective Services

Our most basic obligation to our children must be to ensure their safety, and that starts with a well-supported, well-run Child Protective Services. We wrapped up a productive special session, from which came sweeping procedural reform and additional funds to ensure that CPS has the resources it needs to investigate every reported case of abuse or neglect. CPS was empowered to hire more investigators, and existing employees were given long overdue pay increases. Source: 2004 State of the State speech to Arizona Legislature , Jan 12, 2004

Investment for fewer abuse and neglect cases

Child Protective Services is now in a position to respond to emergencies, but the bigger challenge is preventing abuse before it escalates into a tragedy. The Legislature was right to establish Healthy Families in 1994, and it is time to build on this success story. My 2005 budget will contain a recommendation to double the Healthy Families budget, from $7.25 to $14.5 million. This relatively small investment promises big dividends-safer children, more capable parents, and fewer abuse & neglect cases. Source: 2004 State of the State speech to Arizona Legislature , Jan 12, 2004

Establish a quality childcare rating system

We will work with private childcare providers and government agencies to establish a quality childcare rating system, identify tools and resources to meet standards of quality, and prepare information for parents to adequately evaluate those centers. I have asked the School Readiness Board to find new sources of public and private funding to help childcare providers ensure that they have adequate facilities and curricula to properly stimulate children’s development. Source: 2004 State of the State speech to Arizona Legislature , Jan 12, 2004

Resources to childcare assistance for low-income families

Parents cannot support their children if they don’t work, and many cannot work without assistance with the cost of childcare. We make an investment in our children when we support quality childcare assistance for working parents who need it. We must devote more resources to childcare assistance for low-income working parents. My budget recommendation will include an additional $24 million to substantially reduce the number of families waiting for assistance. Source: 2004 State of the State speech to Arizona Legislature , Jan 12, 2004

Give parents tools to balance work and family.

Napolitano adopted the manifesto, "A New Agenda for the New Decade":

Strengthen America’s Families
While the steady reduction in the number of two-parent families of the last 40 years has slowed, more than one-third of our children still live in one- or no-parent families. There is a high correlation between a childhood spent with inadequate parental support and an adulthood spent in poverty or in prison.

To strengthen families, we must redouble efforts to reduce out-of-wedlock pregnancies, make work pay, eliminate tax policies that inadvertently penalize marriage, and require absent fathers to pay child support while offering them new opportunities to find work. Because every child needs the attention of at least one caring and competent adult, we should create an “extended family” of adult volunteer mentors.

Family breakdown is not the only challenge we face. As two-worker families have become the norm, harried parents have less time to spend on their most important job: raising their children. Moreover, parents and schools often find themselves contending with sex- and violence-saturated messages coming from an all-pervasive mass entertainment media.

We should continue public efforts to give parents tools to balance work and family and shield their children from harmful outside influences. For example, we should encourage employers to adopt family-friendly policies and practices such as parental leave, flex-time, and telecommuting. Public officials should speak out about violence in our culture and should press the entertainment media to adopt self-policing codes aimed at protecting children.

Goals for 2010

Cut the rate of out-of-wedlock births in half.
Recruit a million mentors for disadvantaged children without two parents.
Provide affordable after-school programs at every public school.
Make every workplace “family-friendly.”
Promote policies that help parents shield their children from violence and sex in entertainment products.

Source: The Hyde Park Declaration 00-DLC4 on Aug 1, 2000

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