As home visiting programs have gained popularity over the past few years, attention is now moving to the children who spend substantial time being cared for by adults other than their parents. In response to the growing interest, the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) created a toolkit for State policymakers and advocates, offering tips and strategies for expanding access to State and federally funded home visiting models via coordination with family, friend, and neighbor (FFN) child care providers. Link to pdf Toolkit
Tag Archives: Home Visiting
Engaging Families: Field Guide to Making Home Visits Matter
This field guide, intended for social workers, discusses strategies for engaging families during visits. It begins by urging social workers to use a solution focused approach and identifies core conditions for developing a relationship with families, including demonstrating genuineness, empathy, respect, and competence. A practice wheel is presented that describes strategies for engaging, teaming, assessing, planning, intervening, and tracking and adjusting. Steps are then discussed for working with resistance and developing a working agreement, and tasks that a worker or support person can do to assist families through each stage of the process of change are also reviewed. Following sections of the guide address: skills for engaging families, including strategies for eliciting solutions, interviewing techniques to promote exploration, and solution-focused questions; the cycle of need and possible need statements; outcome indicators for safety, stability, well-being, and permanency; and safety and stability considerations. Link to Field Guide
Investing in Families Through State Home Visiting Programs
2012, National Conference of State Legislatures. Investing in Families Through State Home Visiting Programs.
Meeting Goals:
- Share information about the state of home visiting in the states and implementation of federal grants
- Provide a learning opportunity about a specific evidence-based model and identify policy imlications for state legislatures
- Identify legislative actions that can be taken and support participants pursuing legislation or funding proposals
- Gather feedback on home visiting challenges
Home Visiting Legislation in the States (2009-2012).
2012, National Conference of State Legislatures: Includes a Michigan legislative bill.
HB 5572; 2012: Pending: Requires the Departments of Community Health, Human Services and Education to collaborate and ensure that funds are used to fund programs meeting evidence-based or promising practice standards and programs using home visiting as voluntary, primary method of service delivery for families with children ages 0-5 and pregnant women. Excludes IDEA/early intervention services and services that provide only one-time visitation. Requires state agencies to collaborate on data collection and sharing protocols. Link to pdf Description
Home Visiting Program Model Descriptions
2012, National Conference of State Legislatures: Presents a description of nine home visiting early intervention programs. Link to pdf Description Sheet
Supporting Evidence-Based Home Visiting to Prevent Child Maltreatment
In 2008, the Children’s Bureau (CB) within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services funded 17 grants with the goal of supporting the implementation of home visiting programs that may prevent child maltreatment. Grantees are to focus on supporting implementation of, scaling up, and sustaining home visiting programs with high fidelity to their evidence-based models. In addition, grantees contribute to the knowledge base about large-scale implementation with fidelity by conducting local implementation and outcome evaluations, along with analyses of program costs.
Summary of EBHV Program Models
| EBHV Program Model | Target Population | Expected Dosage | Expected Duration |
| Family Connections | Families with at least one child age 5 to 11; demonstrated risk for neglect | Minimum 1 hour face to-face per week | 3 to 6 months |
| Healthy Families America | Pregnant women or new parents within two weeks of infant’s birth | Scaled (from weekly to quarterly) | Until child’s fifth birthday |
| Nurse-Family Partnership | First-time pregnant women < 28 weeks gestation | Scaled (from weekly to quarterly) | Until child’s second birthday |
| Parents as Teachers | Birth or prenatal to age 5 | Minimum monthly home visit and group visit | Until enrollment in
kindergarten |
| SafeCare | Birth to age 5 | 1 to 2 hours per week | 18 to 20 weeks |
| Triple P | Birth to age 12 | Weekly | Varies by type of service (from 1 to 2 sessions to 8 to 11 sessions) |
Link to Supporting Evidence Based Home Visiting Web Site This web site contains many resources for evaluating and comparing various programs. It also contains links to resources for each of the programs. However, the primary focus is on implementation and evaluation from a program director’s perspective.