Planning and Implementing Home Visiting Programs

Provides resources that address the planning and implementation of home visiting programs on the national, State, and local levels. Topics include legislation and policies, staffing, funding, and other administrative recommendations to improve home visiting programs.

• State and local examples

Assessing the Need for Evidence-Based Home Visiting (EBHV): Experiences of EBHV Grantees (PDF - 3615 KB)
Paulsell & Coffee-Borden (2010)
Provides information about how grantees planned needs assessments and collected data, as well as facilitators and barriers to carrying out the assessments and lessons learned.

Extending Home Visiting to Kinship Caregivers and Family, Friend, and Neighbor Caregivers (PDF - 974 KB)
Hoffmann & Perrin (2009)
Uses interviews with representatives from national home visiting models and other stakeholders and experts to explore considerations and opportunities for using home visiting to serve children in kinship care or with family, friend, and neighbor caregivers. The report includes promising models for serving these populations and recommendations for State and Federal policymakers.

Home Visitation and Young Children: An Approach Worth Investing In? (PDF - 170 KB)
Astuto & Allen
Social Policy Report, 23(4), 2009
Reviews several national studies of home visiting program models and recommends investments in programs that are committed to continuous quality improvement and are part of an early childhood system of care.

Home Visitation With Psychologically Vulnerable Families: Developments in the Profession and in the Professional (PDF - 1220 KB)
Harden
Zero to Three, 30(6), 2010
Addresses a theory of change for home visiting programs and discusses the structural (dosage, target, and staffing) and process (relationships, approaches, and activities) aspects that enhance their quality and, ultimately, their benefits to high-risk families and their young children.

Home Visiting Application Process: A Guide for Planning State Needs Assessments (PDF - 1376 KB)
Child Trends (2010)
Provides information to help States plan and conduct needs assessments, identify high-risk populations, and select and measure benchmarks for home visiting programs as established under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010.

A New Approach to Early Intervention: Virtual Home Visits (PDF - 1853 KB)
Family Center on Technology and Disability (2010)
Discusses the use of virtual home visits to supplement traditional in-person home visits for families living in remote areas who are in need of services.

Realizing the Promise of Home Visitation: Addressing Domestic Violence and Child Maltreatment: A Guide for Policy Makers
Family Violence Prevention Fund (2010)
Presents recommendations for building a strong national policy framework to maximize the effectiveness and reach of early childhood home visiting programs and to ensure that Federal home visiting policies directly address the needs of mothers and children who are experiencing or at risk of experiencing domestic violence.

State-Based Home Visiting: Strengthening Programs Through State Leadership
Johnson (2009)
Examines whether States are investing in home visiting programs to promote better outcomes for young children and whether they meet the needs of children facing the greatest social and developmental risks. Also see the webinar.

There's No Place Like Home: Home Visiting Programs Can Support Pregnant Women and New Parents
Cawthorne & Arons (2010)
Provides information on how home visiting programs lead to improved maternal and child health outcomes, positive parenting, safe homes, connections to integrated assistance, as well as how poverty affects mothers and young children. (PDF - 200 KB)

ZERO TO THREE Home Visiting Community Planning Tool (PDF - 712 KB)
ZERO TO THREE (2011)
Guides communities through the process of creating new or expanding existing home visiting services. The tool helps communities use data to identify their strengths, needs, and gaps in current home visiting services; choose an evidence-based program model; and align work at the local level with State efforts.