BY B.G. GREGG
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Ohio plans to give its counties $28 million for home visitation programs to help new mothers and young children.
Nearly $3 million will come to five Southwestern Ohio counties (Hamilton, Butler, Clermont, Warren and Brown), which are expected to spend the money on a regional program directed by Cincinnati's United Way & Community Chest called Every Child Succeeds.
Under the program, a nurse or social worker would be sent into the home of every new mother in a nine-county area (including Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties in Kentucky and Dearborn County in Indiana).
Mike Dawson, a spokesman for Gov. George Voinovich, said the Ohio money will be available Sept. 1.
Linda McCart, executive director of the Ohio Family and Children First Initiative, said, "The biggest reason we're doing this is because of all the research on brain development that says you need to start early with kids."
The United Way launched Every Child Succeeds in May 1997 and pledged to spend as much as $25 million a year helping area children. The agency, through consultation with local leaders and study of national programs, decided the best way to stop child abuse, unplanned pregnancies and other social problems is to sponsor home visits to new mothers.
"The results of home-visitation programs are phenomenal," said Don Thomas, director of the Ohio Department of Human Services. Mr. Thomas asked the Ohio Department of Human Services for welfare money for the program, then later called a meeting of other Southwest Ohio counties to determine whether they were interested in starting such programs with state money.
State officials liked the idea and expanded it to include all 88 Ohio counties.
"Don Thomas is a guy who really went to bat, not only coming up with the money to come our way for this program, but getting the money to go statewide," said Frank Smith, a Procter & Gamble Co. executive who led the Every Child Succeeds initiative for the United Way.
