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The Department of Health and Human Services recently announced $386 million in grant awards to states, territories and nonprofit organizations to support the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program. These funds will allow states to continue expanding voluntary, evidence-based home visiting services to women during pregnancy and to parents with young children.
Since 2010, the Home Visiting Program has supported more than 1.4 million visits in over 700 communities in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and five territories. The program targets communities with high teen birth rates, low birth weights, high infant mortality rates and high rates of poverty. The program is especially beneficial for families facing a range of economic and social challenges that have children up to age 5 – nearly 80 percent of families participating in the program have household incomes at or below the 100 percent Federal Poverty Level.
The Home Visiting Program allows a nurse, social worker or early childhood educator to make home visits beginning during pregnancy and continuing through the first years of the baby’s life. These visits benefit families by promoting healthy child development, increasing school readiness and building parental capacity through positive parenting. In addition, the voluntary program provides families with advice, guidance and help navigating and accessing health, social service and child development professionals.
While the most recent HHS funding award will allow states to expand these services, the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program is currently set to expire on March 31, 2015. An expansion of the program, which is part of the President’s Early Learning Initiative, is included in the current FY16 budget at $500 million in FY16 and $15 billion over the next ten years. In considering the benefits of the Home Visiting Program, continued federal support of the program can allow states to help even more families and their young children.
For the full press release, please click here.