Child welfare

“ Medical and dental inspection of school children will also be of value, and the town doctors will aid in it.
Pure food should certainly be studied, with investigations and recommendations of clean markets and groceries.
Child welfare is a most important subject. [Pg 11] Fresh air funds, children's summer camps, the prevention of infant mortality, children's clinics and the like will grow out of its study.
Child labor comes in this connection. If there are mills or canneries near by, it must be seen that the state laws are enforced there. The state care of the defective child should be studied. ”

“ To coordinate and facilitate access by eligible children and their families to the services available through community resources, including mental health, physical health, substance abuse, educational, domestic violence prevention, child welfare, and social services. ”

“ But real welfare reform is also about family. That means putting in place the toughest possible child support enforcement. It means requiring teen mothers to live at home, to stay in school, to turn their lives around. ”

“ So today I say to Congress, child care must be the central element of our effort to put welfare mothers to work. The bold plan that I support, which has been proposed by Senators Daschle, Breaux, and Mikulski, provides that kind of child care. Our bill presents a genuine opportunity for bipartisan agreement, and I hope we take advantage of it soon. After all, we should want the same thing for people on welfare we want for all Americans, the chance to build strong families and to make the most of their own lives. ”

“ I have directed the Federal Government to work with State and local governments to continue identifying and removing the barriers that prevent young people from moving from our child welfare system into adoptive families. ”

“ We've also pressed ahead on fundamental reforms to make the welfare system reflect the basic values that have stood up so well for so long, that if you bring a child into this world, you must take responsibility for that child; that Government will not subsidize irresponsible or reckless behavior; that welfare is a second chance, not a way of life. ”

“ On page 1 the definition of 'Child in need of care and protection' is so widened as to cover every possible type of preventive case, if read in conjunction with the amendments passed during last session and with the Cabinet authorities to spend public funds on such children.
"We do not think it necessary to increase the powers of Child Welfare Officers for these purposes. To give them more actual powers over children who have not committed an offence would be to risk justifiable public objection to interference with the liberty of the subject and the rights of parents." ”

“ And fourth, we'll see to it that we use the most up-to-date research methods to track teen pregnancy trends. We have to make sure our efforts are actually paying off.
Finally, we'll carry out the strong provisions of the welfare reform law I signed last year, which requires teen mothers who receive welfare not only to stay in school but to live at home or in an adult-supervised setting. It sets up second-chance homes where young mothers who can't go home still have a safe place to raise a child and turn their lives around. And it institutes the toughest ever child support measures. ”

“ There is evidence to show how much of the welfare of the child depends on the general physical and emotional health of the parents, and that the child’s fate may be determined by some physical weakness, some emotional trouble at conception or during pregnancy. No legislation can step in here, save at the most very indirectly. We can, however, quicken the social and individual conscience. The making of children is the [Pg 302] highest of all human functions, and that which carries the most widespread and incalculable consequences. ”

“ The most recent reports from State child welfare agencies, however, confirm that one million cases of substantiated child abuse or neglect occur in our Nation every year. Of these cases, more than a thousand children-many under the age of four-do not survive; and most die at the hands of a parent or other family member. ”

“ But above and beyond this element has been the quiet and persistent growth of the work among board-of-health officers, medical societies, club women, church organizations, physicians, nurses—in fact, among all bodies of men and women especially interested in child welfare. ”

“ We have helped remove many economic barriers to adoption by providing tax credits to families adopting children, and the Family and Medical Leave Act that I signed into law in 1993 gives workers job-protected leave to care for their newly adopted children. The Adoption and Safe Families Act I signed in 1997 reformed our Nation's child welfare system, made clear that the health and safety of children must be the paramount concern of State child welfare services, and expedited permanent placement for children. ”

“ Let us now for a few moments consider how great a blessing an infant school is, even when regarded as a mere asylum to take charge of the child's bodily welfare. I have mentioned before, that the poor are unable to take that care of their children which their tender age requires, on account of their occupations; and have shewn, that it is almost certain, that the children of such persons will learn every species of vice. But there are other kinds of dangers which more immediately affect the body, and are the cause of more accidents than people in general imagine. ”

“ That's why welfare reform must include a national campaign against teen pregnancy and the toughest possible enforcement of our child support laws, along with the requirement that people on welfare will have to get off of it and go to work after a specified period of time. It also means that if you're going to require that, there has to be a job there for them and support for people who are working to raise their children in the proper way. ”

“ So too, changes in our child support enforcement system can reduce welfare dependency. Parents who bring children into the world have a responsibility for these children, whether they live with them or not. The administration is taking steps to ensure that States are able to do a better job in locating absent parents, establishing paternity, and collecting child support on behalf of AFDC recipients. We also have asked the Congress for new laws that would increase child support award amounts for both welfare and nonwelfare families. ”

“ But the community has a more direct and less disinterested concern in the welfare of children: every child is a potential power for good or ill; what its children become, that will the community become. It is knowledge of this that prompts the establishment of public schools and colleges, and all the manifold associational activities intended to promote the physical and spiritual welfare of children. ”

“ Meanwhile, in the last 2 years, we've cut through Federal redtape to give 26 States, more than half the country, the authority to conduct their own welfare reform experiments. And Republicans and Democrats now agree on tougher child support enforcement. They all agree that we have to have national action on tougher child support enforcement because 30 percent or more of the child support cases that are delinquent cross State boundaries. ”

“ We have always felt that the spirit of the Child Welfare Act 1925 placed an obligation on us to do preventive work, and there are two Cabinet decisions, one going back to 1941, which certainly give the authority. However, we agree that it might be desirable to have the obligation expressed explicitly in the Act. Indeed, in the draft Child Welfare Bill prepared by the Division some eighteen months ago you will find this done in two ways ”

“ Both Socialism and Child-Protection have intimate associations alike with the quantitative and with the qualitative problems of population. Both Socialism and Child-Protection exert a powerful influence upon the quantity and the quality of human beings; and conversely these latter react no less powerfully upon Socialism and Child-Protection.
The leading aim of Child-Protection is to prevent the death of children before they attain an age at which they become competent to contribute directly to the welfare of society. ”

“ Much more enlightened care will, no doubt, be bestowed upon the welfare of the infant than is done at present. How many crimes are unwittingly committed against a child’s mentality by ignorant parents and nurses! Lies and prevarications and evasions are always reprehensible, but with children they are of fatal and life-long effect. ”

“ In the absence of proper home care and training, society for its own protection and for the welfare of the child must assume charge. The State becomes a foster-parent, and as far as possible provides a substitute for the home. The earlier method was to place the individual child, with many other similar unfortunates, in a public or private philanthropic institution. In such an environment it was possible to maintain discipline, to secure instruction and a wholesome atmosphere for social development, and to have the advantage of economical management. ”

“ The welfare reform plan that I proposed to the Congress last year contains the toughest child support enforcement measures in America's history-measures that would improve the effectiveness of procedures for establishing paternity, make it easier to enter and update child support awards, and dramatically strengthen our ability to enforce payment of those awards. ”

“ Every court in dealing with a child or young person who is brought before it, either as being in need of care or protection, or as an offender or otherwise, shall have regard to the welfare of the child or young person and shall in a proper case take steps for removing him from undesirable surroundings, and for securing that proper provision is made for his education and training. ”

“ Welfare of child or minor. A child or minor shall be considered to be eligible for ADC if his home situation is one in which his physical, mental and moral well-being will be safeguarded and his religious faith preserved and protected. (1) In determining the ability of a parent or relative to care for the child so that this purpose is achieved, the home shall be judged by the same standards as are applied to self-maintaining families in the community. ”

“ For the school to do for its children whatever they may need during their school years will require the setting up of a miniature society in every school building or under every school board. Unless schools are to equip themselves to take the place of all existing facilities for relief and surgery, children would not be so well taken care of as at present. It should not be forgotten that the physical welfare of the school child is the most accurate index to the physical needs of the community. ”

“ We know, for example, that the simple failure to pay child support is one of the chief reasons women and children are on welfare. And this week, the Vice President and Secretary Riley released a report showing that when fathers do take an active role, their children do better—much better—in school. ”

“ If deadbeat parents paid all the child support they should in this country, we could immediately move over 800,000 mothers and children off welfare. Let me say that again: If deadbeat parents paid the child support they owe, we could move immediately over 800,000 mothers and children off welfare. This goes way beyond welfare. Millions of children of working parents would have more secure lives and much brighter futures if the errant parents, absent parents, paid what they owe. ”

“ We have shown our commitment to ensuring that every child grows up in a safe and nurturing environment through additional measures such as teen pregnancy prevention efforts, welfare reform that moves families from economic dependency to self-sufficiency, expanded access to affordable housing and homeownership, and responsible fatherhood initiatives to ensure that fathers provide both the financial and emotional support their children need. And, to help working families provide for their children, we are continuing our efforts to improve access to high-quality, safe, and affordable child care. ”

“ First, with regard to welfare reform, I believe we should offer more opportunity in terms of education and work to people on welfare, but we must demand more responsibility, tougher child support enforcement, responsible parenting, and the requirement that to receive benefits, young people should be in school or working toward going to work. ”

“ Keeping children safe is a community responsibility, and prevention must be a community task. Every segment of society must be involved, including health and law enforcement professionals, schools, businesses, the media, government agencies, community and faith organizations, and especially parents themselves. Teachers and physicians need to recognize the symptoms of child abuse; parents need to ask for help in overcoming addictions or controlling violent behavior; communities must be willing to fund programs and services to protect children from abuse ”

“ Fortunately, we have come to understand better the duty of every American to protect our children, and our knowledge about the prevention and treatment of child abuse continues to grow. We better realize the duty of individuals-neighbors, friends, clergy, teachers, parents, relatives, doctors, nurses, volunteers, and so on-State and local authorities and community child protection agencies to safeguard children and to provide support, information, and guidance to families in which maltreatment of children may happen. ”

“ Let us not forget what befits our present state in the pursuit of vain fancies. Mankind has its place in the sequence of things; childhood has its place in the sequence of human life; the man must be treated as a man and the child as a child. Give each his place, and keep him there. Control human passions according to man's nature; that is all we can do for his welfare. The rest depends on external forces, which are beyond our control. ”