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Bar News - February 4, 2005 Opinions: Calling All Lawyers: Raise Your Voices for Children By: Ellen Shemitz Powerless children need powerful friends. The Children's Alliance of New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Child Advocacy Network (NH CAN) believe lawyers can become more involved as friends of children, helping us to raise a strong voice to make children a priority in New Hampshire. 2005 promises to be one of the most challenging years ever for children and families across New Hampshire - with significant threats and opportunities at both the state and federal levels. As child advocates, we need to build support for strategic investments in children's programs-to connect the dots between healthy children and strong families today and a thriving economy tomorrow. In support of this goal, the New Hampshire Child Advocacy Network (NH CAN) has released a nonpartisan plan of action-the 2005 Children's Agenda. The 2005 Children's Agenda sets public investment priorities across multiple areas of child and family life: In health, we focus on strategic investments in preventive health care. In his inaugural address, Gov. Lynch pledged to enroll every eligible New Hampshire child in the Healthy Kids health insurance program. Healthy Kids NH is a national success story. The Children's Agenda calls for both the enrollment of all eligible children in Healthy Kids and for the preservation of Medicaid health insurance coverage for poor children and families. The 2005 Children's Agenda sets forth two steps to improve public education. First, we need to define-as a state- what we expect from our public education system. We must create a benchmark of excellence that extends to all children in all public schools-including our youngest children entering kindergarten. For too long, New Hampshire has stood out as the only state in the nation to fail to support universal public kindergarten. Second, we must approach school funding from the perspective of workforce development. If New Hampshire is to enjoy a strong economy in the future, we must improve the supply and skill level of future workers graduating from our schools. We cannot afford to see one quarter of our ninth graders drop out of school before graduation. Let's connect the dots and set state education funding at a baseline that supports quality-with supplemental targeted aid to address differences in the costs of education. We also need to help connect the dots between children and decent jobs. Children need to grow up without the instability that poverty brings. Children do better when their families are strong, and families are stronger when they don't have the stresses that accompany poverty. The Children's Agenda seeks to help low-income parents work by raising state reimbursements to child care providers at a level that enables them to pay decent wages and by increasing the stock of affordable housing. Children need safety and security. Abused and neglected children are among the most vulnerable people in our state, but the people whose job it is to respond to them have too long lacked the tools, time and training they need to do the job. The Children's Agenda calls for accreditation of New Hampshire's child protection system to ensure that those who respond to child abuse have what they need to make children safe. Toddlers delight in connect-the-dot coloring pages. It's time for NH's leaders to do the same: connect the dots between public investments in quality education, healthy children and strong families to the bigger picture- a thriving New Hampshire. There are many ways that you can help promote public understanding of the need for state policies that make children a priority. For more information visit www.ChildrenNH.org, the Web site of the Children's Alliance of NH. Ellen Shemitz is the President of Children's Alliance of New Hampshire. A graduate of Yale Law School, she is a member of the NHBA. Ms. Shemitz has written and lectured extensively on the rights of children. |
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