hen a child is injured or dies at the hands of an adult who is supposed to protect them, all of Florida grieves. Governor Chiles and Lt. Governor MacKay worked to strengthen the child protection system, to ensure that children are put first.

Child protection workers are now required to pass an intensive skills test and fieldwork exam. To ensure the state's at-risk children are protected by the highest quality workers, Governor Chiles worked to increase the pay for those workers who make the grade.

In addition, the Chiles/MacKay administration tried new and innovative community-based ideas to work at the front end of the problem — to reach out to families before they're in crisis. The Healthy Families program began in Florida in 1992 with a pilot program in Pinellas County and has since expanded to Orange, Hillsborough, Duval and Polk counties. The program pairs parents of infants at risk of abuse or neglect with specially trained paraprofessionals who provide home visits, parent education, child development activities and ongoing support service for a five-year period. In the Orange County project, 97 percent of participating families had no report of abuse or neglect during the service. In 1998, the Governor campaigned to expand this successful program to every county in the state, and the Legislature approved $10 million to begin making Healthy Families Florida a reality.