In this opinion piece for Youth Today, Richard Wexler, executive director of the US National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, remarks on a few recent studies and findings that have indicated what many in the US child protection field already know: that social protection and anti-poverty programs improve child welfare outcomes and reduce child "neglect." One such study "found that reports of what child protective services agencies deem 'neglect' declined in states that took advantage of the option to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, and increased in states that did not take advantage of this option." In response, Wexler writes: "for the rest of us it’s pretty obvious: 'Medical neglect' is, itself, a category of child neglect. Odds are if people have health insurance, they’re more likely to be able to get health care for their children. More generally, lower health costs for poor families means more money for food clothing and shelter — the lack of which also are routinely confused with neglect."
Wexler points to several other studies with similar findings and also notes that many studies have found therapeutic interventions and other forms of "help" to be less effective than cash transfers or other increases of income in reducing child neglect. "We already know exactly how to target child abuse prevention without an algorithm," says Wexler. "It’s a simple, two-step process: (1) Find the neighborhoods where poor people live, (2) Send money."