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Government Nannies at Your Door

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Government Nannies at Your Door

“We’re from the Government and we’re here to help you.”

Do those words give you a warm, fuzzy feeling? The sponsors of the “Welcome to Washington Baby Act” think so. “A welcome hug from the State of Washington,” is how one Legislative Aide described the bill. The bill in the House of Representatives is HB 1771 and the companion bill in the Senate is SB 5683. It would establish a universal home visiting program for families of newborns. There are many disturbing aspects to this bill.

What does the bill do? “Universal”, in this case, means that the program is for all families regardless of income level, educational level, or employment status. The program is described as “voluntary”, but we all know that voluntary government programs tend to become mandatory later. This legislation would enlarge an existing visitation program which currently focuses on at-risk families.

Under the bill, government visiting nurses or other “allied professionals” would go into families’ homes and offer help with parenting skills, health and nutrition advice, and information on other government programs. They will use screening tools such as the Washington State MIECHV (Maternal Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting) Benchmarks Grid, a “Relationship Assessment Tool” to gauge how you relate to your partner and your child, an ACE (Adverse Childhood Experience) survey, and other survey tools.

The surveys would collect data such as personal information about your past pregnancies, your sex life, the quality of your current relationship, your state of depression, your upbringing as child, and other private information. These data would then be entered into a State data bank.

The rationale is that early intervention into family dysfunction can prevent possible future health, educational, and criminal justice problems and would save the state thousands of dollars. The probing questions about your childhood are to discern whether any negative childhood experiences or trauma could result in your becoming a dysfunctional or abusive adult, according to the ACE-Kaiser study.

There are problems on many levels.

1. Conflict of missions. As with many government programs, the more clients enrolled in the program, the more funding the agency will claim it requires. There is an incentive to identify as many clients as possible as needing services. Also, in 2017 the Department of Early Learning and Child Protective Services were put under the same agency, the Department of Children, Youth, and Families. That means the department that may now enter your home to “help” and which is incentivized to find problems is the same department that can remove your child from you if it suspects neglect.

2. Intrusive data collecting. A large amount of personal data is collected. How secure are these data? With whom are they shared? How are the data going to be used? Does the subject realize that the psychological data are not protected as they are when divulged to a psychologist? Can the subject see and correct the data? How long are these data archived?

3. Ignoring Constitutional protections. Both the US Constitution and the Washington State Constitution protect us against unwarranted searches or seizures. A vulnerable young mother may not have the nerve to turn down a visit from a government official. The government is supposed to maintain and protect our individual rights, not enter our homes without probable cause looking for signs of poor childrearing or other shortcomings. We are supposed to be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects.

4. Fiscal irresponsibility. It would require much funding to hire hundreds of visiting nurses, “allied professionals”, and data-technicians at taxpayer expense to examine the lives of law-abiding citizens. This would unnecessarily further empower big government and is not good stewardship of our tax dollars.

Please tell your state legislators to oppose HB1771/ SB5683 Universal Home Visiting. If you need help contacting your legislator, go to this link:  http://leg.wa.gov/LIC/Pages/hotline.aspx .


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