McCullough Addresses 'Family Fragmentation'

Rep. Mark McCullough believes Oklahoma’s course is clear when it comes to shifting resources to address family fragmentation.

“We are overrun with data showing the effects of family fragmentation going back 30 years,” the Sapulpa Republican said. “It is the source of a myriad of problems that consume both state and federal resources and lead to problems we see everywhere – education, crime, mental health and economic dependence on government.

“Unfortunately, family fragmentation has become a ‘dog bites man’ story to many,” McCullough said. “But it affects all of us. Who hasn’t been personally affected by this problem? And because we don’t talk about it, because it has been accepted as part of the social fabric, we find ourselves paralyzed to address this widespread problem.”

A recent interim study conducted by McCullough found children from broken homes are 12 times more likely to be incarcerated, which is one reason state spending on the criminal justice system has grown 510 percent since 1982 and Oklahoma has one of the highest incarceration rates. Those same children are also three times more likely to be expelled and to receive lower grades.

“The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing” conservatively estimates the resulting taxpayer cost of divorce (largely through public assistance programs), at $112 billion per year nationally and $430 million annually in Oklahoma. It shows family fragmentation is at the epicenter of much of the demand for state-funded services.

The study also presented validated methods of preventing family fragmentation. The National Institute of Marriage has been working with thousands of couples in severe crisis. Their research has shown that 100 percent of the couples leaving the intensives would recommend the intensive to others. After two years, approximately 80 percent of couples, who were in severe crisis, are still together.

McCullough said Oklahoma’s foray into relationship training, the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative, will soon be able to provide information on whether or not its pre-marital counseling programs are showing success.

“One thing I do know is that the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative has done an excellent job in reaching would-be couples by promoting its programs through churches, schools and even prisons,” McCullough said.

The recent conference, a follow-up discussion of the interim study, drew prevention professionals from state agencies, the non-profit sector and Oklahoma’s faith community.

“All the participants thought that more could be done to coordinate efforts between these groups and that a better model to address family fragmentation would be to preserve families rather than wait for the problem to reach a crisis,” McCullough said. “Coordination is a key to achieving prevention of these problems that result in higher costs to taxpayers and down the road."

Claudette Selph, representing the Tulsa County Child Protection Coalition, spoke about her group’s efforts to create changes to the child protective systems in an effort to reduce trauma on children. Hosted by the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, the discussion also featured Kelly Nichols on the impact of family fragmentation on corporate America, Steve Buck from the Department of Mental Health and former District Judge Gary Miller.

Miller helped start a cutting edge locally-funded juvenile intervention effort in Canadian County. He said that Canadian County was able to create an omnibus juvenile center to better ensure the county’s young people were given the support needed to get out of the system.

“Last year we had 41 percent of our children born in this state were born to a single parent head of household,” Miller said. “So you have fragile children being born into a fragile environment. I think that’s exactly what’s concerning to Representative McCullough and what he’s trying to address with his study of family fragmentation. I think that’s what Canadian County is also trying to address fragmentation, again in partnership with the state.”

Selph said the Tulsa County Child Protection Coalition has showed success because of how many people and organizations it has brought together to work on systemic problems.

“We’ve been very excited that Howard Hendricks from DHS has given permission to all his staff to work with the community,” Selph said. “We have Tulsa Police Department, Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office, all the service providers that provide treatment and the district attorney’s office. When you bring all of these players together, you’re going to find that you’re going to get some significant changes when you have a staff structure in place to move the agenda along through committees.”

Selph said the coalition has broken ground on a new shelter to replace an older, worn-down one. The coalition has also started family group conferencing, which has as a priority to find relatives, family friends or teachers that the children can stay with rather than entering into foster care where they are being cared for by strangers. She also said many entities around the state would be interested in forming coalitions if they had a dedicated staff to run them. The Tulsa coalition’s paid staff positions would not be possible without the support of several Tulsa foundations committed to system change in the child protection system, she said.

“We have made many improvements in Tulsa County and we would be very excited for this model to be taken to the state level.”

McCullough also cited the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services’ Systems of Care program, which is designed to aid children before a mental illness becomes even more costly to the state. The program boasts a 49 percent reduction in the arrests of the children it serves, a 45 percent reduction in the number of school detentions those children receive, a 68 percent reduction in their attempts to harm themselves and a 45 percent decrease in the number of out-of-home placements. Each year, untreated mental illness and substance abuse costs Oklahoma $3.2 billion in direct expenditures and as much as $4.4 billion in indirect costs attributed to premature death and lost productivity.

McCullough said questions remain as to whether or not Oklahomans’ tax dollars are being used effectively to address social problems. While validated prevention programs are underfunded, “clean up” programs are draining government resources. He envisions that by rerouting money from “clean up” programs to prevention, possibly through incentives to state agencies, the state could save millions in the long-run and improve the lives of thousands of Oklahomans.

“I am advocating for expanded prevention efforts because I am a fiscal conservative. Programs shouldn’t be perpetuated because they make us feel good – they should work,” McCullough said. “If a first duty of government is public safety, then implementing data driven prevention policy is simply a best practice in promoting that end.”

John Stanley, director of the Marriage and Family Foundation, estimates that $1 spent to prevent family breakdown could save $1,000 down the road spent on cleaning up the aftermath of fragmentation.

McCullough said he plans to continue advocating for prevention, indentifying the best approaches to addressing the problem.

“How do we get the divorce rate down from 50 percent to 25 percent?” McCullough said. “How do we get births among unwed mothers down from 40 percent to 20 percent? The goal is better outcomes. My hope is that we can all work together to make that happen.”

Share |

Experts Discuss Disintegrating Family Life

From The State House Media Office ~ The ripple effects of family fragmentation are costing Oklahoma taxpayers millions of dollars each year and the problem may only get larger, officials warned state lawmakers this week.

Members of the House Human Services committee heard from a wide range of experts and agency leaders during a legislative study requested by state Rep. Mark McCullough, who said the state needs to change the way it deals with family issues.

“When it comes to the problem of family disintegration, we are like a deer in the headlights,” said McCullough, R-Sapulpa. “Everyone is affected by the issue, but we’re afraid to address it because we know none of us is perfect. Unfortunately, that allows the problem to grow and the price tag keeps expanding. It’s time we put more effort into enacting policies that support marriages and help families both survive and thrive.”

McCullough noted lawmakers were “very fortunate” to hear from several national experts and state agency heads as part of the study.

Dr. Jeff Frey, chairman of the Marriage Co-Mission, noted that the national divorce rate has hovered around the 50 percent mark for about 20 years and that the marriage rate has plunged 48 percent since 1970. In 1960, he noted that just 5 percent of all births were to unwed mothers but that figure grew to 36 percent by 2000 – a 700 percent increase.

Today, 33 percent of American children live away from their fathers and 40 percent of those kids never see their fathers in a typical year.

Those trends have a huge impact on both society and government. Frey and other officials noted that children from broken homes are seven times more likely to live in poverty, three times as likely to be expelled from school and achieve lower grades, and 12 times more likely to be incarcerated.

Children from broken homes also tend to have poorer emotional and physical health, which is further complicated by the fact that many uninsured children are from single-parent homes.

Research indicates that the resulting taxpayer cost of divorce (largely through public assistance programs) now stands at $112 billion per year nationally and $430 million annually in Oklahoma – and those are conservative estimates.

Frey noted the “script of marriage” has been lost in large segments of the culture and the issue is now one of “know-how.” Frey has identified seven key factors that influence the health of marriage in America: corporate, media, church, community mobilization, education, youth, law and/or government.

Mike Jestes, director of the Oklahoma Family Policy Council, noted the state of Oklahoma would be better off spending money “on the front end” to preserve marriages than on the back end to “clean up” the problems created by family fragmentation.

For example, he noted state spending on the criminal justice system has grown 510 percent since 1982 and that a large share of that problem is likely tied to family fragmentation.

Jestes noted that the faith community could play an augmented role in the prevention of family fragmentation. In Oklahoma, he noted 74 percent of all weddings occur in a church and that many couples call the church first when they have problems.

Echoing the assessment of other experts, John Stanley, director of the Marriage and Family Foundation, said for every $1 spent on keeping families together, government spends $1000 on “clean up” from the fallout of broken families.

Stanley said publicity efforts could play a role, such as a 13-state media campaign planned in the coming months that will promote positive messages for troubled marriages. That campaign will include the Oklahoma market, he said.

Beyond the social benefits, relational-wellness initiatives could also have positive impact in the workplace and Oklahoma economy. Dr. Greg Smalley, the director of the Center for Relational Enrichment, noted that the communication skills required to maintain a strong marriage also transfer to the workplace, such as the ability to understand others and work cooperatively.

Smalley has worked with many large corporations across the country to implement state-of-the-art “Emotional Intelligence” programs that teach business leaders how to constructively manage emotions in the workplace.

Officials noted the state of Oklahoma has been a leader in pro-marriage initiatives and is already experiencing some success. For example, Kendy Cox, an official with Public Strategies, noted the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative has served 152,845 individuals to date. The OMI has also provided relationship training for 15,000 students in grades 9-12.

State law allows couples who complete an OMI class to obtain a marriage license for only $5. That incentive apparently is working since there has been a slow but steady increase in the issuance of those discounted licenses since 2007.

McCullough noted there was “strong agreement” among the marriage and family experts who spoke at the legislative study that “we now have very effective tools for relationship management and crisis intervention.” He said the challenge for policymakers is to increase access to those tools.

He also noted the “unanimous consent” among agency heads – a group including the leaders of the Department of Human Service, Department of Corrections, Office of Juvenile Affairs, and the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services – that a better model for addressing family problems would require “moving upstream” and intervening before the problem reached a crisis.

“While government cannot fix everything, it can do a lot more than we’re doing today to help preserve families,” McCullough said.

Echoing Glenn Stanton with Focus on the Family, McCullough noted that “for too long government’s role in marriage has been limited to issuing marriage licenses and divorce decrees. I believe this study demonstrates that government has a much larger stake in the health of our families than many people realized. We have learned that there are policies and incentives that will have a positive impact on marriages. And, given the price tag taxpayers pay because of family fragmentation, we literally cannot afford to continue ignoring this issue.”

Share |