'A Humanitarian Cause For All': Bill Pascrell Demands Improvements To Child Welfare Programs

3 months ago

During a House Ways and Means Committee hearing late last month, Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) questioned witnesses about childhood welfare programs and efforts to strengthen them.

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Transcript

00:00recognize Mr. Pascrell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, you've all been

00:08first-class witnesses, and I thank you for your courage. It takes

00:15courage to say what you said, but you hear a lot of stuff around here which

00:22passes for courage. To me, courage means not only say it, but you do it. That's a

00:32tough transition, isn't it, at times? Our job, I thought our job, was to protect the

00:44least of these among us, our seniors and our children. We didn't do a very good

00:56job on the first day. I mean, you saw what happened during the pandemic in those

01:01nursing homes. We don't know half the story. We never got it. In New Jersey, I

01:12personally listened to the Advocates for Children of New Jersey, which has

01:19advocated for kids and families for 177 years. This is not a

01:27partisan issue. This is a humanitarian cause for all of us. If we agree with

01:36that, we're halfway home. Each of our witnesses can offer testimony on

01:44children who navigate the foster care issue and then thrive. Thrive. Of course,

01:58we must always be concerned about fraud and guard against Wall Street vultures

02:06snatching public funds to line their pockets to do what we're talking about

02:12today. Private equity is definitely not hot and already has a troubling track

02:23record in new services. You cannot allow the private equity octopus to reach its

02:31tentacles in child services. So, Ms. Hilton, thank you for your comment that

02:39this $23 billion industry sees Children as dollar signs. You wrote that

02:46and said it. We're sending youth a signal that profit is more important

02:52than their lives.

02:55Very well stated.

02:57Just unpack briefly for us why the for profit industry is so dangerous here in

03:06what we're talking about.

03:08Thank you so much for that. And it's so dangerous because they're caring more

03:15about profit than the safety of Children. And that means that they are

03:20trying to spend as little money as possible. And the type of employees that

03:26they're hiring are people that are not being checked through. There should be

03:31nowhere near Children and just the entire situation. There's no education

03:39in these places. The food quality, the living conditions, there's mold and

03:45blood on the walls. It's horrifying just what these places are like. They're

03:52worse than some dog kennels that are out there. It's just it's terrifying. And

03:58all of these private equity companies are seeing that this is such a

04:02profitable industry. So they're caring more about the bottom line than

04:06Children's lives. So So what you're saying really is there's a vacuum here

04:12of service. We're trying to fill that vacuum. Yet other people are vacuuming

04:17out the money when they say that will be helpful here. This is this is

04:23dangerous to me. Extremely. Mr. Dean, can you expand on how we could

04:30strengthen

04:32the pipeline for qualified workforce? Another big problem with senior housing

04:38another in nursing homes.

04:41Qualified workers can't get them.

04:45Uh,

04:46who's gonna protect our Children?

04:50So, as I said earlier, I do think that workforce is such a critical issue

04:54because any reform you want to do is dependent on having a qualified

04:58workforce. I will say I believe the problem is lesser recruitment than a

05:02retention problem. Our workers take two years to learn their jobs from their

05:07mouths,

05:09and many of them quit within those first two years. Why they quit for many

05:14reasons. One and we'll get into this is the administrative burden. It's the

05:18paperwork that they're asked to fill out when they went to school to learn

05:23how to take care of families and to engage families and Children. And

05:27instead, they're working on paperwork. Um, there are lots of opportunities to

05:35get workers past the period where they're just new and learning their

05:40jobs. One of the challenges the loan forgiveness program that currently

05:44exists for social workers. You have to be in your job for 10 years. Very few

05:49actually last that long. If we change the duration of time that that was

05:55available, we would get people sticking it out past a year and a half, two

06:00years to the point that they now know how to do their jobs. They could become

06:04effective supervisors. And once they're at that point, they're much more likely

06:08to make that job a career. Mr Chairman,

06:12it's a practical recommendation. Could we put it on the review for the

06:17committee?

06:19You want to talk to the full committee chairman about that? But you're the

06:22chairman right now.

06:25I appreciate this hearing, and I think it's very productive and we'll we'll

06:28get a lot of work done as a result. Mr Chairman, Dr Winstrup, you are now

06:32recognized. Thank you, Mr Chairman. This is something that's

'A Humanitarian Cause For All': Bill Pascrell Demands Improvements To Child Welfare Programs

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