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Improving entry to youngster care and youngsters’ well being care kind the core parts of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s agenda in 2024, as the second-term Republican rolled out a slate of coverage priorities specializing in kids to state lawmakers Wednesday.
DeWine, talking in the House of Representatives’ chamber in the Statehouse, delivered his State of the State address to a joint session of the GOP-controlled Legislature, a preview of his price range and coverage plans for 2024.
To an awesome extent, DeWine targeted on enhancing well being care and pupil studying, in addition to issues he mentioned can increase Ohio’s financial system, together with efforts to broaden youngster care and maintaining extra school graduates in the state.
OHIO GOV. DEWINE SAYS PRECAUTIONS ENSURE ‘A GREAT DAY’ IN LEADUP TO ECLIPSE
He mentioned he desires to construct on earlier efforts to broaden backed youngster care, school tuition and technical training choices in excessive colleges.
“The single most important thing we can do for Ohio’s future is to ensure that all Ohio children — all Ohio children, no matter where they live, no matter who their parents are — have the opportunity to live up to their full God-given potential and they have the chance to pursue their dreams and their passions in life,” DeWine mentioned.
DeWine mentioned he desires to create a baby care voucher program for households that meet earnings eligibility necessities and to make use of $85 million in federal funding for grants to broaden youngster care choices.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine speaks throughout a information convention, Friday, Dec. 29, 2023, in Columbus, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
The voucher program could be open to households that make as much as 200% of the federal poverty stage, or $60,000 for a household of 4. He estimated that it will assist 8,000 kids. He didn’t say how a lot cash it will require, or what kind of grant could be obtainable to every household.
Saying the state must retain extra of its school graduates, DeWine mentioned he desires to start out gathering information that measures what number of graduates get jobs inside six months. He framed the effort as an accountability measure that can assist college students in choosing a better training establishment to attend.
As half of an effort to assist kids study, DeWine mentioned he desires to make sure each youngster who fails a imaginative and prescient screening check in class can get a follow-up eye examination and, if wanted, a pair of eyeglasses. Too many don’t, he mentioned, asserting a “Children’s Vision Strike Force” to work with imaginative and prescient care professionals.
“Ohio has by no means had a statewide plan to make sure that each Ohio youngster who wants glasses will get glasses,” DeWine mentioned. “Now we do.”
DeWine pledged to enhance numerous points of well being take care of infants and schoolchildren.
Every college ought to take into account beginning a school-based well being clinic, DeWine mentioned. His administration might assist with technical help, he mentioned.
He mentioned his administration will launch a brand new pilot program in 11 counties to supply each new mom a go to from a nurse about three weeks after delivering a child. Visiting nurses can assist dad and mom discover medical assist, navigate breastfeeding or different points of caring for an toddler, DeWine mentioned.
Similar applications have a observe file of decreasing toddler mortality, emergency room visits, postpartum melancholy and youngster protecting providers investigations, DeWine mentioned.
He additionally mentioned he desires to broaden a quick-response service for kids in psychological well being disaster from 38 to all 88 counties.
On public well being and security, DeWine requested lawmakers to ban marijuana use in public after Ohio voters authorised a measure final yr legalizing leisure marijuana, defying Republican legislative leaders who had refused to go it.
He requested lawmakers to toughen seat-belt legal guidelines, require colleges to attenuate cellphone use by college students in lecture rooms, and write new laws to require parental consent for kids below 16 to make use of social media apps. An present regulation DeWine signed is blocked by a court docket.
“We need to go after the social media companies that are targeting our kids — addicting them and then monetizing that addiction,” DeWine mentioned. “What they are doing is shameful.”
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He additionally known as for lawmakers to outlaw flavored vaping and flavored cigarettes and ban the sale to kids of delta-8 THC, a mildly intoxicating sibling of delta-9 THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana.
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