This month the LePage administration announced plans to end funding for a child abuse prevention program that works directly with at-risk families across the state. Dozens of supporters of that program showed up at a public hearing Friday on legislation that would restore funding.
For over three hours social service providers from across Maine testified that the community based program has been an effective addition to state efforts to protect children. Sen. Cathy Breen, a democrat from Falmouth, says the program is a good deal, given its price tag of $2 point 2 million per year.
“CPPC is a cooperative effort to prevent child abuse by bringing together many community members and organizations,” Breen says. “CPPC educates them on the risk factors related to child abuse and on community resources available to prevent abuse.”
The program has been operating for more than a decade in some parts of the state. Shawn Yardley is with Community Concepts, one of the agencies that provide the service.
“This is a critical program and I think you’ve heard it well that the peer model can really make a difference where nobody else can,” he says.
But the Department of Health and Human Services testified against the legislation, saying the program is duplicative of other efforts. Additionally Deputy Commissioner Mike Mahar says the bill is so broadly written that it would interfere with the agency’s ability to manage its programs.
“We have to always be looking at every single dollar we have, where does it need to go now, where are the gaps? Where can we put them, So, so, basically, we feel like we won’t be able to make those decisions that are usually deferred to us,” Mahar says.
The cuts would take effect next October 1 and were announced just before the death of 10-year-old Marissa Kennedy in Stockton Springs, but after the death another girl, 4-year-old Kendall Chick, who died in December in Wiscasset. The deaths have prompted an investigation by the legislature’s Government Oversight Committee, which has voted to issue its first subpoenas. More subpoenas are expected to be issued in the weeks ahead.
