Senator Orrin Hatch
Chairman
Senate Committee on Finance
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Senator Ron Wyden
Ranking Member
Senate Committee on Finance
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Chairman Hatch, Ranking Member Wyden:
We write in strong support of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program. As you know, the MIECHV program provides evidence-based home visitation services to mothers and at-risk youth in order to improve health outcomes, prepare children for school and academic success, reduce domestic violence, decrease rates of children entering the juvenile justice system, increase family economic self-sufficiency and enhance coordination between local community resources. Additionally, this program helps prevent child abuse, neglect, maltreatment and injury, reducing emergency room visits and improving overall quality of life for children and their families.
Since its inception in 2010, the MIECHV program has successfully provided states with the incentives they need to invest in accountable and proven programs designed to improve the family support infrastructure. As a result, states have partnered their home visiting programs with more accountable and comprehensive systems of care to increase efficiency and coordination across service providers. Leaders on the state level agree that the federal MIECHV program has been instrumental in promoting strong support systems to strengthen families, bolster communities, and ultimately reduce costs throughout the system. As a demonstration of the program’s tremendous national, state and local support, a letter urging an extension of the MIECHV program was recently sent to Congress with signatures from more than 750 organization and representatives from all 50 states, the territories and the District of Columbia.
Despite this outpouring of support from every corner of the nation, and the program’s overwhelming success in helping support children and families, its future is currently in jeopardy as funding is set to lapse at the end of the month. In order to ensure families and their children continue receiving these vital services, we strongly urge the program be extended and the current funding level maintained. We further urge that the funding necessary to maintain the MIECHV program not come from other vitally important maternal and child health programs, such as the Social Services Block Grant. These programs work in concert to provide the full range of services necessary to provide children and their families with the tools they need to achieve lifelong success.
As the Finance Committee and the full Senate continue work on legislation aimed at extending a number of Medicare, Medicaid and other health care programs in the coming weeks, the MIECHV program and the families it serves cannot be left behind. We look forward to continuing the bipartisan effort to support children and families by securing an extension of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting program.
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