• 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

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