Research has demonstrated that home visitation programs can be successful in addressing a host of poor childhood outcomes such as failure to thrive, lack of school readiness, and child abuse. Recognizing the potential of home visitation for new parents, the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse (NCPCA) in partnership with Ronald McDonald Children's Charities and in collaboration with the Hawaii Family Stress Center launched Healthy Families America (HFA). The Healthy Families America vision is to offer all new parents support when their babies are born and to offer those parents facing the greatest challenges intensive home visitation services.
To realize this vision, Healthy Families America emphasizes the importance of collaboration - integrating with and building onto existing service delivery systems. The Healthy Families America approach to home visitation is defined by a set of critical program elements as suggested by repeated evaluations of early intervention programs with new parents. In addition to helping to assure quality, these basic elements allow for flexibility in service implementation to permit integration into a wide range of communities, as well as opportunity for innovation.
Initiation of ServicesService ContentSelection and Training of Service ProvidersThese critical elements represent the current knowledge base for best practice in home visitation. To assure that we continue to expand that base, it is important that HFA programs include an evaluation component that includes measurable outcomes (e.g., immunization rates, age appropriate development and reports of child abuse and neglect).
Use a standardized (i.e. in a consistent way for all families) assessment tool
to systematically identify families who are most in need of services. This
tool should assess the presence of various factors associated with increased
risk for child maltreatment or other poor childhood outcomes (i.e., social
isolation, substance abuse, parental history of abuse in childhood).Initiate services prenatally or at birth.Offer services voluntarily and use positive, persistent, outreach efforts to
build family trust.
Offer services intensively (i.e., at least once a week) with well defined criteria for increasing or decreasing intensity of service and over the long-term (i.e., three to five years).Services should be culturally competent such that the staff understands,
acknowledges, and respects cultural differences among participants; and
materials used should reflect the cultural, linguistic, geographic, racial and
ethnic diversity of the population served.Services should focus on supporting the parent as well as supporting parent-child interaction and child development.At a minimum, all families should be linked to a medical provider to assure
timely immunizations and well-child care. Depending on the family's
needs, they may also be linked to additional services such as, financial, food
and housing assistance programs, school readiness programs, child care, job
training programs, family support centers, substance abuse treatment
programs, and domestic violence shelters.Services should be provided by staff with limited caseloads to assure that
home visitors have an adequate amount of time to spend with each family to
meet their varying needs and to plan for future activities (i.e., for most
communities no more than 15 families per home visitor on the most intense
service level. And, for some communities the number may need to be
significantly lower e.g., less than 10.)
Service providers should be selected because of their personal
characteristics (i.e., non-judgmental, compassionate, ability to establish a
trusting relationship, etc.), their willingness to work in or their experience
working with culturally diverse communities, and their skills to do the job.Service providers should have a framework, based on education or
experience, for handling the variety of experiences they may encounter
when working with at-risk families. All service providers should receive
basic training in areas such as: cultural competency, substance abuse,
reporting child abuse, domestic violence, drug exposed infants, and services
in their community.Service providers should receive intensive training specific to their role to
understand the essential components of family assessment and home
visitation (i.e., identifying at-risk families, completing a standardized risk
assessment, offering services and making referrals, utilizing creative
outreach efforts, establishing and maintaining trust with families, building
upon family strengths, developing an individual family support plan,
observing parent-child interactions, determining the safety of the home,
teaching parent-child interaction, managing crisis situations, etc.)Service providers should receive ongoing, effective supervision so that they
are able to develop realistic and effective plans to empower families to meet
their objectives; to understand why a family may not be making progress
and how to work with the family more effectively; and to express their
concerns and frustrations.
 |
Home | What's New | About NCPCA | Program | Advocacy | Research | Chapters | Special Features | What You Can Do | [Parenting Tips | Youth Focus | Contacting NCPCA | Work@NCPCA | Resources | Child Abuse Facts | NCPCA Events | Reprint Form |
|
|
Gifts
that support child abuse prevention!
Greeting Cards and Angel Pins for the Holiday |