Just months after Gov. Spencer Cox's new Office of Families began operating, the state has made several efforts aimed at helping families.
SALT LAKE CITY — Just months after Gov. Spencer Cox's new Office of Families began operating with a three-quarters-time staff of one and lofty ideals about how policies can strengthen Utah families, the state has expanded its home visiting program for vulnerable families, passed social media restrictions designed to protect kids and funded a state child tax credit for families with very young children.
Future areas of focus include promoting the benefits of marriage, strengthening fatherhood, boosting parenting resources and supporting women with unwanted pregnancies.During his State of the State address in early 2022, Cox announced plans to create a special office focused on family issues and family policy. Stronger families create better outcomes for children, he said, noting that sometimes means state government should get involved and other times it should get out of the way.
First, they tackled expanding existing home visiting programs to households with newborn and young children, which had proven to be very valuable but were only funded to serve about 600 families in Utah each year. "I think a lot of us take for granted that it's easy to parent a new baby, and it's not," said Winder Newton. "It's not easy for any of us."
Such programs, he said, drastically improve outcomes for children. "For every dollar we spend, we save up to $5.70 in cost later on. These home visits take place with a nurse or another professional who checks in on the family. They assess growth, development of the baby, safety in the home," and the mother's mental health.
The benefits of such programs, she added, are big — ranging from making it more likely parents will get jobs that pay well to reducing the number of low-birthweight infants, from reducing abuse and neglect to helping families create "more developmentally stimulating homes," among others.
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