Texas children's advocates urge
better health care and foster care
___By Ken Camp
___Texas Baptist Communications
___AUSTIN--Children's advocates from around Texas assembled at the state capitol Feb. 13 to direct lawmakers' attention to issues of child care, health care and abused children.
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PHIL STRICKLAND, director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission and chairman of the Texans Care for Children coalition, presents a Texas-sized Valentine to state lawmakers during a Children's Advocacy Day rally on the south steps of the Capitol last week. (Photo by Ken Camp).
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___"Keeping the Cause of Children in Our Hearts" was the theme of Children's Advocacy Day in Austin, sponsored by the Texans Care for Children network.
___Phil Strickland, chairman of the board of Texans Care for Children and director of the Texas Baptist Christian Life Commission, presented a "Texas-sized" Valentine to lawmakers at a rally on the south steps of the capitol.
___Sen. Mike Moncrief, D-Fort Worth, and Rep. Elliott Naishtat, D-Austin, accepted the banner-sized greeting, signed by children, youth and children's advocates from throughout the state, on behalf of their legislative colleagues.
___Prior to the rally, children's advocates gathered at Austin's First Baptist Church for a legislative update and issues briefing.
___Sandy Anderson, executive director of the Texas Association Childcare Resource and Referral Agencies, emphasized the importance of ensuring that children and their families have access to quality early child care and education.
___"Advocating for our children's health, safety, educational, emotional and spiritual development is worth the investment," she said.
___Texans Care for Children legislative priorities in this area include increased subsidies for low-wage child-care workers, increased tax incentives for employer-sponsored or subsidized child-care programs, and increased training requirements for registered family homes and licensed child-care facilities.
___DeAnn Friedholm, co-chair of the Texas CHIP Coalition, stressed the need to improve children's health services in Texas.
___A key way to achieve that goal is to simplify the process of applying for Medicaid, she said.
___CHIP is an acronym for the state's Child Health Insurance Program.
___Theresa Tod, executive director of the Texas Network of Youth Services, urged expanded services to at-risk youth and their families through the STAR program. The program offers counseling and skills training, along with emergency shelter services when needed, for young people ages 7 to 17 and their families.
___Tod also called for expanded at-risk mentoring programs and support for programs to reduce the school dropout rate.
___District Court Judge Scott McCown described Child Protective Services as "a rescue boat on the ocean of life."
___"The first priority should be to keep children from falling in the water in the first place," the judge said.
___But for those children and youth who need assistance, efforts need to be made to "make more room in the boat" for them, he said.
___"There is a shortage of foster homes, adoptive homes and residential facilities," McCown said.
___Lawmakers should improve the capability of the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services to reunify families and offer a stable home environment for children, he said.
___They can do that, he suggested, by expanding foster care and adoptive home recruitment efforts and providing funding for kinship care to relatives who care for neglected or endangered children.
The Baptist Standard
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