GLENS FALLS, N.Y. -- The tragic death of 7-month-old Colbi Bullock two weeks ago at has some looking for ways to prevent this from happening again. Police say the mother's roommate Michael Flint, Jr, abused the baby over a period of time and that Alicia Lewie didn't do anything to stop it.
"What we have today is people who don't know how to parent. There are so many factors and so many flags that we could look at to try to intervene and try to prevent this or at least help these people be better parents, " said State Senator Betty Little.
After the tragic death of a Glens Falls baby two weeks ago, some are looking at what went wrong and if it could have been prevented. Our Jessica Mokhiber sat down with Senator Betty Little who is now proposing to expand a home visitation program in an effort to protect children.
Little is now proposing statewide home visitation for at-risk mothers -- that is, single mothers, perhaps on Medicaid, or teenage mothers. Colbi Bullock's mother Alicia Lewie is 22 now, but she was a teenager when her first child was born. Other counties have these home visitation programs - such as Clinton and Monroe counties - and the mothers are given incentives for signing up for them.
Little said, "They can sign up for the program and the way they get them to do that is they offer coupons. They bring gifts for the baby. They can offer free car seats."
That way, social workers are monitoring what's going on in the home after a baby is born to see if the baby is being taken care of, and if there are any signs of abuse or negligence, they can report it.
Little said, "Then I think you have reason by having been in the home to go to Child Protective Services and do something."
Little said she know it's an expense but said paying for this prevention means paying less in the long run.
"It costs money, but it takes a lot more money to pay for what some of these children have been through," she said.
Little also said she wants to look into the Child Abuse hotline and see what their procedures are when they get calls about suspected abuse, after reports that someone saw Colbi with bruises in the days before his death and called the hotline -- but it's not clear if a report was ever made after that call.