Political Quotes

“I congratulate all of my colleagues for standing up for children and for public education. These are such important issues. We will have in front of us tomorrow issues dealing with public education. But to share with my colleague from Maine, we in Michigan have been focused on those very same issues. I was very proud back in 1982 to sponsor something called the Children's Trust Fund in Michigan, focusing on parent education and child abuse prevention. We have done a 10-year study of the dollars spent on working with young parents when children come home from the hospital. It is a Big Brothers, Big Sisters kind of concept. The fancy name is perinatal coaching, but it is based on the idea of giving support to young parents from the moment they step into their own home with that newborn, to help them as they learn new parenting skills and be able to work with them through the first year of the child's life to raise that child, to give it the kinds of skills you talked about.”