home visitation

A new assessment of Los Angeles County’s home visiting portfolio suggests the county has a number of effective programs, but a significant gap between available services and families that need it.

A new brief from Children Now outlines a portfolio of policy solutions aimed at supporting children in California during the critical developmental years of early childhood. In California, a significant chunk of the state’s babies and toddlers are at risk of abuse and poor health outcomes during their youngest years.

Some of the most fulfilling and valuable experiences of my early career involved working as a home visitor about twenty years ago. I traveled through Philadelphia’s most underserved neighborhoods with a team from the MomMobile, a community-based organization that provides free support and education to families facing the challenges that pregnancy and parenting bring.

A few weeks after the expiration of a growing federal program that invests in home visitation programs, Congress last night approved a two-year extension that keeps it going through fiscal 2017.

The House today approved a Medicare bill that included a two-year extension of Maternal Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV), a Department of Health and Human Services program that was created by the Affordable Care Act and began in 2010. 

A popular federal program that pairs trained professionals with young and expecting mothers will expire unless Congress acts this week. Maternal Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) was created in 2009 as part of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Senate and House leadership received a letter today, signed by 750 organizations and local politicians, urging them to maintain a federal program meant to assist struggling young mothers and mothers-to-be. The Home Visiting Coalition asked leaders in the letter to fund the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program at its current level of $400 million “in the lame duck session or as one of the first acts of the 114th Congress before the MIECHV program funding expires in March 2015.”

In a marathon session before Senators made their way out of town to campaign, a bill to restructure adoption incentives and long-term foster care sailed through the chamber, and will likely be signed by President Obama this week.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) included a major federal investment in home visitation programs, which support new and expectant mothers by sending trained workers and/or health professionals into homes. Experts told the House Ways and Means Subommittee on Human Resources last week that the investment should continue, with reasonable expectations.