Study: La. last in child welfare

• By SARAH CHACKO
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Jun 16, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Even as the Louisiana Legislature considers bills to improve the quality of life for children, a national study again found Louisiana ranks last in child well-being.

The Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2008 Kids Count data book, released late last week, ranks Louisiana 49th out of 50 states — a place Louisiana has ranked at least the past decade.

The Casey Foundation’s mission is to foster public policies and community support, as well as provide some funding to state agencies, to help children and families.

Their annual report profiles each state on such factors as child and teen death rates, births to teenage mothers, high school dropouts, children living in poverty, and proficiency in reading and math.

“Chances are if you’re a child in Louisiana, you have a greater risk of seeing one of those negative outcomes,” said Teresa Falgoust with the Agenda for Children in New Orleans.

Louisiana is worse than the national average in every area covered in the report except one: the percent of children without health insurance. In 2005, 10 percent of the state’s children did not have health insurance, 1 percentage point less than the national average.

Alan Levine, secretary of the state Department of Health and Hospitals, said they are making a concentrated effort to expand the Louisiana Child Health Insurance Program, a special Medicaid program for children in families of low to moderate incomes. Since January, the department has signed 11,000 children into the program, he said.

The state health department proposed expanding its Nurse-Family Partnership Program, through which low-income, first-time parents are visited by a nurse two times a week to assist with prenatal care, health and lifestyle practices, and plans for future education and employment.

Sen. Willie Mount, D-Lake Charles, sponsored legislation this session asking DHH to study the expansion of the partnership program.

Mount, chair of the Senate Health and Welfare Committee, said legislators are seeing a greater push of evidence-based, preventative measures.

“We know that if we spend dollars cautiously and carefully in the right way, the end result is less money being spent,” Mount said. “I think we’re headed in the right direction.”

Senate Concurrent Resolution 70 is awaiting final approval in the House.

But budget cuts proposed to many departments threaten some of the programs that state officials say are so important to turning around Louisiana’s trends.