We hospital visit every mother who gives birth in our state, whether she’s the richest or the poorest woman in the state. We ask them if they’d like a home visit; 91 percent say yes. So we visit 91 percent of all the newborn kids within two or three weeks of their birth. Most of those families don’t need any help, but the ones that do get child care, health care, parenting skills, job training skills and programs to try to keep the dads interested in the kids. (Applause.)
Ten years later, our child abuse rate is down 43 percent, and child sexual abuse is down 70 percent in the state of Vermont. (Applause.)
What does this have to do with teaching? The first goal of the National Education Goals Panel is every child arrives at school ready to learn. We have gone too far expecting 5-year-olds to get to the schoolhouse door and expecting you all to turn them around between the time they’re 5 and 10. School systems aren’t made to do that. (Light applause.) We have a responsibility to really be serious about every child arriving at the schoolhouse door ready to learn, and in Vermont, we’ve done that. (Extended applause.)
The 43 percent drop in child abuse in the first 10 years, I hope very much, is going to lead to a big drop in our incarceration rate, because I am tired of having a country that has almost as many people in the jail system as it does in the higher-education system. (Applause.) We can do better. But we have got to stop thinking that the school system is the way around that and give you all a hand by making sure that kids get preschool education, which ought to be something we do nationally, all over the country — (applause) — by making sure that kids between the ages of 0 and 3 have adequate child care. In our state, we subsidize child care up to $39,000 a year for a family, because we want working people to make sure that really no child is left behind.
Success by Six was a coordinated initiative, tying together programs and services that already existed, creating new ones, making funding more available, and sharing common goals and a statewide focus. The original legislation passed in 1991 and was ammended in 1994 (full text here). More elements have been added as the initiative has evolved over time. Here are what I think are the most important elements currently:
- Health Care for Kids: Regardless of the circumstances of the parents, all children under 18 are eligible for state-sponsored health care if their parents cannot afford it, on a sliding scale.
- Parent Child Centers: A network local resource centers that provide core services to families, such as parenting skills classes, job training, and daycare. Some Parent Child Centers existed before Success by Six; in the 90s the network was expanded to 16, covering the whole state.
- Home Visits: Every new parent gets a free visit at the hospital and is entitled to a free visit at home, usually from a representative of the Parent Child Center serving their region. The representative can assess their needs, and let them know about the services that could help, and how to take advantage of them.
- 2-1-1: A more recent addition, I believe, Vermont 2-1-1 “is an easy to remember number you can call for confidential help for everyday needs and difficult times.” It is operated by Ways of Vermont in partnership with the Vermont Agency of Human Services.
Regional Parent Child centers vary, some are nonprofits and some are part of state or municipal agencies, and they design and deliver services appropriate to the needs of their constituents. The state ties it all together with glue funding, and setting common goals. As one PCC director told me,
The one common task is “Welcome Babies” and this is an effort to reach all families with a newborn and give them information and support about what’s available to them if they want support.
What made it all happen was the Governor’s commitment: Not just in passing the original legislation, but in continuing to talk about in public, to talk about it with agency heads and legislators and the press, to assess on a statewide level how it was working out, and to make it a priority. Even when Vermont was going through recessions and cutting or level-funding budgets, he made sure Success by Six stayed funded.
… and now I’m heading to this afternoon’s public meeting of the Human Services Working Group of the Patrick/Murray transition, to pitch Success by Six. I’ll give a short talk, similar to what I’ve written in this post, and I’ll give members of the committee some materials including:
- An annual report on the progress of Success by Six prepared in 2005 at Vermont’s Agency of Human Services
- Text of the legislation, as ammended in 1994
- An overview of the 8 core services offerred by the Springfield Area Parent Child Center
- A copy of Outcomes, a book co-written by Con Hogan who used to run Vermont’s state health programs, for the Annie E Casey Foundation
If you’re in metrowest, please drop by! The meeting begins at 4pm at Plymouth Church, 87 Edgell Road in Framingham [map].
Whether you can come or not, please submit comments to the Patrick administration in support of bringing Success by Six to Massachusetts!
commenting via my Treo from the back of the room at the Framingham meeting…
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It’s 4:40 and there are almost 150 people here. Lots of people signed up to speak so I think this will go a while, at least ’til 6. If you’re just getting out of work, you can still come!
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I’m way down on the speakers list so I won’t be up for a while đŸ™‚
It’s 8pm and the last speaker is up.
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fun quotation: “It’s cool to hear a candidate for governor introduce herself as a social worker” — the guy who spoke after Grace Ross
I think change in this area has been hampered by two things. On the one side, the sixties and seventies seemed to spawn a number of unsuccessful, expensive social programs. Any large government operation will tend to acquire its own momentum. So it becomes hard to fix or stop programs that are not successful. This is certainly a reason to have a higher level of civic engagement and to focus on outcomes, not what “should” work.
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On the other side, conservative values tend to take the world as divided into innocent and evil, and to want to use punishment a lot — sometimes as the principle means of social intervention. You’re not going to get many programs that turn ex-prisoners into responsible citizens from those conservative folks that view ex-prisoners as evil and always due some extra punishment.
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Conservative belief in punishment is mostly immune to studies and statistics on social outcomes. We liberals are much more likely to accept and rejoice in statistics like “a 43 percent drop in child abuse.”
Vermont took the long view, starting right at birth. That’s independent of what you do to reintegrate those people who are already in prison. What you say about conservatives applies to dealing with prisoners & CORI (though fortunately Massachusetts has more liberals than conservatives), but I highly doubt it would cause them to oppose something like Success by Six. And indeed, in Vermont, the program has been very popular with no sign that I know of of conservative opposition (even though Vermont has a higher percentage of conservatives than we do). There’s no point in punishing a child for something he or she might do 20 years later. Even if you’re conservative đŸ™‚
Sheriff Michael Ashe runs an amazing prison/jail in Hamden County, which integrates inmate health programs, social services for families of prisoners, and other programs. It won a national award for innovation in government back in 2000, and it might be used as a model statewide. Among other things, it has resulted in one of the lowest recidivism rates in the state.
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Here’s the link to the porgram description and award citation: http://www.ashinstit…
What makes Success by Six so incredibly valuable is that it’s not a single, monolithic program. Rather, it’s an initiative that ties together existing programs and new programs. Vision, goals, and assessment, are statewide. Implementation is local!
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If we adopted Vermont’s model, we’d also set up a network of regional “Parent Child Centers” who would actually deliver the core services to their regions. As in Vermont, the network would start with some insitutions that already exist, and add more to cover the whole state. And, as in Vermont, each regional center could take a different form, and innovate locally.
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I’ve heard about Sheriff Ashe’s work, though not in detail. It’s kind of orthogonal to what I’m concentrating on, since it addresses how we deal with people who have already gone to prison – people we’ve already failed. Success by Six focuses on how to prevent that from happening to most of the people it happens to to day. However, any great ideas that are already being put into practice and working well, anywhere in the state, regarding early childhood & family support, would naturally become part of a Success by Six system if we were to adopt one.
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I’m sure I’m missing something, because once the national numbers are disclosed, the Vermont numbers lose their luster.
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Perhaps he discloses the national picture elsewhere in his remarks.
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2. More worrisome is that experts are concerned that the large reported drop — nationally and, we presume, in Vermont — MAY NOT BE REAL.
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Check out the US Justice Department concerns here (pdf)
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I’m not sure about how to verify the national numbers. One of the strengths of Vermont’s program is that regional Parent Child Centers make contact with families early, and particularly families that might have trouble, and stay in touch with what’s happening to them.
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However, regardless of the small tidbits in Dean’s speech, Success by Six collected lots of data through annual assessments to tune the programs. I highly recommend reading reading Con Hurley’s book, which is packed with stories and data.
tried but couldn’t follow link…tried google “con hurley vermont” too. am interested…different link?