Strategy

Evidence Based Home Visiting

What is it?

Evidence-based home visiting programs connect parents with trained professionals who provide in-home support during pregnancy and throughout the first five years of a child’s life.  Programs offer a range of services to families including parenting and health education, child abuse prevention, and early intervention. The goal of individual programs may differ, but generally, programs aim to improve child and family wellbeing.

What is the evidence base?

Parents who participate in evidence-based home visiting programs demonstrate improvements in parenting skills, exhibit more responsive interactions, increase their child development knowledge, provide developmentally stimulating home environments, and engage in activities that foster early language and literacy. Programs also positively impact children’s cognitive development and school readiness, specifically increasing IQs, language scores, grade point averages, achievement scores, and graduation rates. Altogether, home visiting programs enhance children’s health and development; improve family economic self-sufficiency; and reduce the number of children in social welfare, mental health, and juvenile corrections systems.

• Doggett_2013_ New Research Strengthens Home Visiting Field
• Zero to Three_2014_The Research Case for Home Visiting

What are the common types of evidence-based home visiting programs?

• Early Head Start-Home Visiting (EHS-HV)
• Healthy Families America (HFA)
• Family Connects
• Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP)
• Parents as Teachers (PAT)