- | Planning Tool
Adapting a framework from SAMHSA and the Annapolis Coalition for Behavioral Health Workforce Development, the Children and Youth Committee has focused a set of recommendations to enhance the mental health (and co-occurring) workforce serving children families in Wisconsin. These recommendations are intended to guide policy decisions and advocacy for workforce development. They are aligned with best practice approaches of other state and federal initiatives, and promising initiatives within the state of Wisconsin. (author summary)
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Many home visiting programs lack the tools and knowledge to boost staff well-being, including an overarching definition and framework to guide their path.The Supporting and Strengthening the Home Visiting Workforce project seeks to understand professional well-being in the home visiting context: how it should be defined, measured, and bolstered to improve program and family outcomes. This brief offers concrete ways for home visiting programs, models, and local agencies to measure and strengthen professional well-being. It focuses on five key drivers theorized to influence home visitor job satisfaction, psychological well-being, job meaning and fulfillment, and self-efficacy and confidence. It builds on findings from a research report and conceptual model previously released by OPRE. (author summary)
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An invitation to join a home visiting summit session called “Vocation-Vision-Voice: Strategies in Professional Development” that explores how supervisory leadership invested the professional development of staff promotes long term program engagement from staff and families. Using a case study of an Early Head Start Home-based program in Santa Clara, California serving a Latino community with fully bilingual staff, we’ll explore how supervisory leadership invested in ongoing professional development of staff promotes long term program engagement for both staff and families. (author summary)
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Home visitation programs are recognized as a preferred model for delivering services to children, parents, and families identified as at-risk. This study compares newly hired home visitors’ (N = 82) perceptions of their job readiness, initial training, supervision and support, commitment to the intervention model, and job satisfaction from ten sites: Nurse–Family Partnership (NFP; three sites), Home-based Early Head Start (hereafter EHS-HBO; two sites), and Healthy Family America (HFA; five sites) programs. Data were collected between 1999 and 2004. Results indicated that NFP home visitors had bachelor’s degrees in nursing, while HFA and EHS home visitors were largely paraprofessionals. NFP and HFA home visitors reported the highest scores on job satisfaction. There were no significant differences between programs on frequency or quality of supervision or commitment to the intervention model. Qualitative data indicated a need for more initial training on challenging topics, a greater attention to supervision and support, clearer articulation of the intervention model, and issues related to job satisfaction. Implications for improving the experiences of home visitors are discussed in the context of current training and supervision practices. (author abstract)
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Purpose – This evaluation describes efforts taken by MIECHV administrators and staff during the pandemic using data collected from 60 MIECHV staff surveys and nine statewide weekly focus groups.
Description – The Florida Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Initiative funds perinatal home
visiting for pregnant women and families with infants throughout the state. Florida MIECHV has shown resilience to disasters and times of crises in the past, while generating a culture of adaptation and continuous quality improvement among local implementing agencies. Florida MIECHV responded to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis within the frst few days of the first reported case in Florida by providing guidance on virtual home visits and working remotely.
Assessment – Findings highlight the role of administrative leadership and communication, staf willingness/morale, logistical considerations, and the needs of enrolled families who face hardships during the pandemic such as job loss, limited supplies, food insecurity, technology limitations, and stress. Home visitors support enrolled families by connecting them with resources, providing public health education and delivering evidence-based home visiting curricula virtually. They also recognized the emotional burden surrounding COVID-19 impacts and uncertainties along with achieving work-life balance by caring for their own children.
Conclusion- This evaluation helped in understanding the impact of the pandemic on this maternal and child health program and fundamentals of transition to virtual home visiting services. Virtual home visiting appears to be feasible and provides an essential connection to supports for families who may not otherwise have the means or knowledge to access them. (author abstract)
- | Planning Tool
This needs assessment is an update to the 2010 needs assessment initiated by MIECHV to examine how the current system of home visitation services in New Hampshire meets the needs of the community and identify gaps in services. Findings from the New Hampshire Home Visitor Survey, which aimed to capture the perspective of home visitors regarding the needs of New Hampshire families, as well as understand the home visitors’ perceived attitudes regarding the benefits and challenges of working in the field, are presented. (author summary)
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This brief summarizes available research on trauma and home visiting to address why home visiting programs should implement a trauma0informed approach, what it means to implement a trauma-informed approach, how home visiting programs can implement a trauma-informed approach, and the implications for research and practice. (author summary)
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In this brief, we use data collected in spring 2018 from a nationally representative sample to describe Early Head Start teachers’ and home visitors’ characteristics, the program activities (or processes) they are part of, and how well their programs operate (or function). We also examine how staff-specific program processes and program functioning are associated with job satisfaction for teachers and home visitors. (author summary)
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This commentary offers strategies to states for utilizing MIECHV funds to strengthen services for children and caregivers in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
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This brief summarizes findings on program management practices from the Home Visiting Career Trajectories project—a national descriptive study of home visiting staff experiences and perceptions of the field from 2018. (author summary)