Children's Trust

Letter from Sue Williams, CEO, to the members of the
Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction

Oct. 21, 2011. On behalf of The Children’s Trust of South Carolina, I urge you to maintain the protections for vulnerable children and families as you seek to complete your work for the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction.

The Children’s Trust serves as the state appointed lead entity for the prevention of child abuse, neglect and unintentional injuries. As a statewide grant maker, facilitator and trainer promoting proven practices and enhancing the state workforce, The Children’s Trust serves 46 community-based organizations in 23 counties across South Carolina.  

Our work at the Children’s Trust is built upon prevention.  We address family and community stressors and promote proven protective factors that keep families strong and children safe. As such, any reductions to the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) or the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program would have an immediate direct impact on the safety of South Carolina’s children in vulnerable situations.

Both CAPTA and MIECHV serve as primary prevention opportunities avoiding expensive interventions from health, educational, social services or law enforcement services. These supported initiatives, both operated by the Children’s Trust in South Carolina, allow for advancement of proven, evidence-based, preventive practices that have a high return on fiscal investments.

The Community Based Child Abuse Prevention grants often serve as the only available resources to communities with a direct focus on the prevention of child maltreatment. MIECHV, with less than two years in operation, is already revitalizing the way voluntary, evidence-base home visiting is delivered in the state.  It is igniting a fresh culture centered on early investments on behalf of children.

In a Sept. 21 letter to the Committee, Nobel Prize winning economist, James Heckman outlined strategies to enhance the workforce skills of our country. In this, Heckman wrote, “we gain money by investing early to close disparities and prevent achievement gaps, or we can continue to drive up deficit spending by paying to remediate disparities when they are harder and more expensive to close…Investing early allows us to shape the future and build equity; investing later chains us to fixing the missed opportunities of the past—for which we pay dearly.”

Along with the programs mentioned above, the Children’s Trust encourages continued investments in those areas proven to work. The field is ripe with information regarding the lasting benefits of high-quality early childhood programs in coordination with, proven parenting strengthening programs. Yet, there remains a lack of structural investments to allow States to reach out to all families seeking assistance. Additional cuts to these supporting services would further delay the progress for children and place their well-being in jeopardy for generations to come.

The Children’s Trust would be pleased to provide any additional information regarding these programs, or other strategies to improve the well-being of children in our state. Thank you for your continued service.

Download a PDF of this letter.