Curt Smith: Here’s how we move the needle on child well-being

Indiana’s 1.6 million children fare only 27th in the national Kids Count survey for overall well-being, a mediocre score motivating many community leaders and state officials toward improvement. The goal: “Let’s make Indiana the best place for kids.”

This robust but still forming conversation to improve child well-being is based at Shepherd Community Center in Indianapolis, but it was sparked this spring by humble upstate legislator Rep. Dale Devon.

Devon, R-Granger, chairs the House Family Policy Committee, where witness after witness testify on the myriad challenges for policymakers without offering truly transformational strategies. That experience was amplified by Granger’s own volunteer prison ministry.

One Saturday, he walked into a juvenile jail and saw a 14-year-old member of his church. “What are you doing here?” they asked each other. The kid’s request that day? “Pray for my child, so he does not end up here like me.”

Devon struggled that morning to know how to pray for a 14-year-old’s baby. But his struggle was not confined to those gut-wrenching circumstances. He was humbled to realize there are too few answers to, “What we can do?”—whether as caring neighbors or policymakers.

The lack of answers prompted him to ask about bigger, bolder, better approaches. Are significant reforms and true innovation underway? This led him to Shepherd, a national leader in faith-based social service provision in Indy’s roughest east-side neighborhoods, led by an equally humble pastor, Jay Height.

This ad hoc group believes the key is harnessing the strength of Indiana’s nearly 50,000 not-for-profits to bring true entrepreneurial innovation while reimagining social services.

It was heartening that Republican U.S. Sen. Mike Braun, who visited Shepherd recently to learn about helping hurting Hoosiers if elected governor, is open to such innovations.

He learned Tennessee is leading the nation in such innovation under Gov. Bill Lee and Commissioner of Human Services Clarence Carter.

Shepherd is actively involved with Tennessee, creating a Center for Human Flourishing to provide assistance and share its remarkable record of ending poverty within the current constraints of public assistance systems.

Braun was told there are ample funds from the 100-plus federal programs (think food stamps, unemployment, Head Start, lead-based paint removal, etc.). However, these are one-size-fits-all silo bureaucracies that stress process over outcomes in people’s actual lives.

To that add thousands of state employees who oversee and administer these programs and 20,000 churches, temples and synagogues, which are uniquely committed to serving the public good from among those Hoosier not-for-profits.

The resources are there; they are just not aligned to move Hoosier kids from 27th to the top spot.

That challenge appealed to Braun, who encouraged the conversation and assured his personal involvement, including the challenge of negotiating flexibility from the federal government to serve Hoosier kids better.

Early initiatives are likely to include harnessing the faith community to dramatically improve foster care placements, pursuing tax credits to make adoption cost-free, and improving fatherhood engagement and family formation. The group must also assure the faith community that Indiana is a partner, not an overlord.

Scholars tell us how to help kids. One camp says it’s all about education. Yet a third set, bolstered by recent Harvard research featured in the July 25 Wall Street Journal, documents that poor kids’ positive economic mobility derives from living in communities where residents have jobs, any jobs.

Taking its cue from Devon and Height, this group will pursue all the above and more, choosing humility over hubris.•

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Smith is chairman of the Indiana Family Institute and author of “Deicide: Why Eliminating The Deity is Destroying America.” Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.

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