U.S. Department
of Health and Human Services
ACF
Administration for Children and Families
Information Memorandum
To: Head Start and Early Head Start Grantees and Delegate Agencies
Subject: Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program
Purpose
This memorandum is to inform Head Start and Early Head Start grantees of the new Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program authorized by Section 511 of Title V of the Social Security Act, as added by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, and to encourage them to participate in the planning and implementation of this program at the State and local levels.
On June 10, 2010, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) issued a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for the new Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, created by Section 511 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 (Pub. L. 111-148).
The overall goals of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program grants to States and territories are to 1) strengthen and improve maternal and child health programs; 2) improve service coordination for at-risk communities; and 3) identify and provide comprehensive home visiting services to families who reside in at-risk communities. The new program responds to the diverse needs of children and families in communities at risk and provides an unprecedented and unique opportunity for collaboration and partnership at the Federal, State, and community levels to improve health and development outcomes for at-risk children and families through evidence-based home visiting programs.
The funds are intended to assure effective coordination and delivery of critical health, development, early learning, child abuse and neglect prevention, and family support services to these children and families through home visiting programs. The program would enable States to utilize what is known about effective home visiting services to provide evidence-based programs to deliver services that promote outcomes such as improvements in maternal and prenatal health, infant health, and child health and development; reduced child maltreatment; improved parenting practices related to child development outcomes; improved school readiness; improved family socio-economic status; improved coordination of referrals to community resources and supports; and reduced incidence of injuries, crime, and domestic violence. Under the home visiting program, grants will be made to States to deliver effective evidence-based early childhood home visiting programs to pregnant women, expectant fathers, and parents and primary caregivers of young children birth to kindergarten entry in communities identified through statewide needs assessments as being at risk.
Although there is a range of different early childhood home visiting models, home visiting programs use home visiting as the primary strategy for the delivery of services to families. These services can include providing information about parenting, health, and child development, linking families to other community services and resources, and providing social supports. Through the efforts of a home visitor such as a nurse, social worker, or paraprofessional to engage and establish a strong relationship with the family or primary caregiver, it is hoped that home visiting programs will result in short- and long-term positive outcomes for children and families.
The State grant program provides an exciting opportunity for States and the Federal government to work together to both deploy proven programs and continue to build upon the existing evidence base. Based on a careful review of available research evidence on home visiting interventions, HRSA and ACF have developed and submitted for public comment criteria for evidence of effectiveness for home visiting models that are likely to improve outcomes for children and families. The program models that States choose to implement must also be linked to the benchmark areas of improvement specified in the ACA.
HRSA and ACF intend that the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program will result in a coordinated system of early childhood home visiting, which has the capacity to provide infrastructure and supports to assure high-quality, evidence-based practice, in every State. This program is also intended to play a crucial role in the national effort to build quality, comprehensive State- and community-wide early childhood systems for pregnant women, parents and caregivers, and young children and, ultimately, to improve health and development outcomes.
This program provides an opportunity for Head Start and Early Head Start programs to participate at the State level, in the development of the coordinated system for delivering comprehensive services through home visiting programs.