As the state grapples with a $3.5 billion budget deficit, we must not lose sight of slowly acquired gains, those that require continued investment now before they pay off in the future. If we don’t, the dollars the state might think it is saving now will be lost later when we have to spend more as we try to undo trauma-based harm to our state’s future workforce.
This presents a crucial intersection of social and economic policy that should not be overlooked. In a bare-bones fiscal era, we need to find a way to protect what the Alaska Mental Health Board’s Pat Sidmore calls “an infrastructure investment in people.”
Sidmore, who works for the board as a health and social services planner, conducted an analysis for the Mental Health Board and Alaska’s Advisory Board on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse that shows if childhood trauma were modestly reduced in Alaska, the state could save nearly $92 million each year in costs related to the long-term impacts trauma has on overall health and success. Eliminating child abuse could lead to an immediate additional savings of $82 million each year. The state spends $48,375 on every child for whom there is a substantiated report of harm. Reduce the harm, reduce the cost.
Data show that Alaska’s investment in child welfare is already leading to gains. When Sidmore compared childhood trauma rates of Alaskans to those of several other states, he found that Alaskans had a higher rate of childhood trauma. But when he isolated the data by age sets, younger Alaskans reported fewer traumatic experiences than older Alaskans, and the younger Alaskans' rates more closely aligned with rates seen in other states. It was the older Alaskans, those who would not have had early intervention offered to younger generations, who showed the greatest amount of trauma early in life.
The Alaska Department of Education and Early Childhood Development has in recent years provided four programs for the pre-K age group. But in Gov. Bill Walker's proposed budget for 2017, three of the programs are stripped of their funding, said Anji Gallanos, early childhood administrator and pre-K-fifth grade content specialist for the department.
To continue reading this commentary by Jill Burke, go to: http://www.adn.com/article/201...laskas-fiscal-crisis
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