Slaughter Announces $376,875 Grant to Monroe County Health Department

Funding Will Help Protect Children from the Effects of Family and Community Violence

Washington, DC - Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (D-Fairport), Ranking Member of the House Rules Committee, is pleased to announce that the Monroe County Health Department has been awarded

$376, 875 to further its work on behalf of children at risk from, and affected by, family and community violence.

"Our youngest children are often the most susceptible to the traumatic effects of unstable and violent households and communities," Rep. Slaughter said. "This funding will help provide the resources needed to fix these environments where they exist, as well as help children who have been hurt by them to recover quickly and completely," she added.

The grant was provided by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and was administered by the Safe Start program. Safe Start funds multi-faceted local efforts to help children deal with the consequences of violence in their lives and to eliminate the broader causes of this violence itself.  

The funding is a part of a national initiative to prevent and reduce the impact of family and community violence on young children, primarily from birth to six years of age. Safe Start provides Federal funding to locales for up to seven years, conditioned on grantee performance and the availability of future funds. Thereafter, the programs initiated are intended to be sustained through local funding.

To learn more about the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, click here. Background information on the Safe Start program can be found below.

BACKGROUND

Throughout America, millions of children are exposed to violence at home, in their neighborhoods, and in their schools. Young children are particularly at risk of and affected by violence and exposure to violence. Children exposed to violence do not receive adequate intervention or treatment to address harmful after-effects. Children exposed to violence either directly as victims or indirectly as witnesses are more likely to become violent themselves. There is currently a movement toward a coordinated response to more effectively address these effects.

Safe Start seeks to create a comprehensive service delivery system by helping communities to expand existing partnerships among service providers in the fields of early childhood education and development, health, mental health, family support and strengthening, domestic violence, substance abuse prevention and treatment, crisis intervention, child welfare, law enforcement, courts, and legal services. This broad-based approach should improve access to, delivery of, and the quality of services for young children at high risk of exposure to violence or who have been exposed to violence. Services will also be made available to their families and caregivers.

Safe Start demonstration sites have engaged in a nine-month planning process (Phase I of the initiative) and have provided a 5 Year Strategic Plan and an 18 Month Implementation Plan for review and approval to continue to Phase II of the project. This final supplemental award will provide necessary data for the completion of the child outcome data collection of the Tier II national evaluation.