December 11, 2012Harrisburg, PA

Pennsylvania’s Home Visitation Stakeholder Committee

Meeting

Diving Deeper

Healthy Families America –Karen Shanoski

Parents as Teachers – Colleen Masi

The Pew Center on the States conducted a national review of state home visiting efforts which uncovered that while nearly all states are making critical investments in quality, voluntary home visiting programs, evidence of effectiveness too rarely determines how those dollars are spent, oversight is insufficient and funding is inadequate. In response to these findings Pew is leading a national campaign with the goal of establishing state-level home visiting laws that ensure state investments are tied to evidence-based strategies. Such state policies would also aim to spur meaningful monitoring, accountability and program quality. Pew maintains the position that in this time of persistent state budget deficits and heightened economic stress, states cannot afford to waste precious public resources on ineffective programs. States must raise the bar for home visitation so they can deliver on the promise of healthier, more successful children and families and secure a return on taxpayer investment.

Getting Clear About

Home visiting is defined as an evidence-based program, implemented in response to findings from a needs assessment, that includes home visiting as a primary service delivery strategy (excluding programs with infrequent or supplemental home visiting), and is offered on a voluntary basis to pregnant women or children birth to age 5 targeting the participant outcomes in the legislation which include improved maternal and child health, prevention of child injuries, child abuse, or maltreatment, and reduction of emergency department visits, improvement in school readiness and achievement, reduction in crime or domestic violence, improvements in family economic self-sufficiency, and improvements in the coordination and referrals for other community resources and supports.

Source: HRSA/ACF Funding Opportunity Announcement, 7-1-10, page 7

Home visiting in itself is not an intervention or a program, but rather a strategy for service delivery from which to launch any number of interventions designed to achieve a wide variety of outcomes. Home visiting programs target different populations within the community via a variety of staffing and practice models, curricula, and intervention approaches. Many home visiting programs target populations and address outcomes distantly related to those of the Commission. For instance, there are home visiting programs that provide home health care to the elderly, address truancy in teenage boys, or offer respite care to family caregivers of the disabled.

Source: Thompson L, Kropenske V, Heinicke C, Gomby D, and Halfon N. Home Visiting: AService Strategy to Deliver Proposition 10 Results, in N Halfon, E Shulman and M

Hochstein, eds., Building Community Systems for Young Children, UCLA Center forHealthier Children, Families and Communities, 2001.

What information or clarification would it be helpful to have in a definition?

How would you use a definition if you had one?

Using the Vision Statement

Scholars identify vision as an essential component in models of successful leadership.

Importance of a Shared Vision

How have you used or shared the vision in your work?

What specific tools would support the use of the vision statement? Checklist? Set of related underlying questions?

What step can you agree you would all be willing to take to use the vision?

Partners in Achieving the Vision

A program is considered evidence-based and eligible for funding if it meets either of the following minimum criteria: – At least one high-quality or moderate-quality impact

study of the model has found favorable, statistically significant impacts in two or more of the eight outcome domains described below, or

– At least two high-quality or moderate-quality impact studies of the model using non-overlapping analytic different samples with one or more favorable, statistically significant impacts in the same domain.

Source: http://www.hrsa.gov/grants/manage/homevisiting/sir02082011.pdf

The legislation reserves the majority of funding for one or more evidence-based home visiting models. In addition, the legislation supports continued innovation by allowing for up to 25% of funding to support promising approaches that do not yet qualify as evidence-based models.

Source: http://www.hrsa.gov/grants/manage/homevisiting/sir02082011.pdf

Please help us to identify. . .

1• Additional programs in Pennsylvania with which to

partner

2• Criteria for partners. Are there any? If so, what?

3

• Questions or clarifications that would support collaboration and movement

4• Strategies for promoting collaboration with additional

partners

Creating a Cohesive Whole

Determine priorities for focus and convene subgroups to develop action plans and timelines for accomplishing the work within

From MIECHV Timeline

Organizing the Work

1• Review the tasks to be accomplished and the possible

work groups

2• Sort the tasks into work groups

3

• Identify the work group you would most like to be involved in

4• Meet in work groups. Identify chair and members.

Defining Terms Collaborating Among Home Visiting Partners

Promotion of Home Visiting

1

Competencies/Professional Development

Continuous Quality Improvement Sustainability of Home Visiting Programs

Communication: Essential to Achieving the Vision

How could communication help you do your work more effectively?

Communicating Up• Which state-level

entities or agencies need ongoing information about home visiting work in PA?

• How often?• In what form (e.g.,

email, print)?

Communicating Down• Which

community-level groups need ongoing information about home visiting work in PA?

• How often?• In what form?

Communicating Sideways• How often

should your home visiting counterparts be updated?

• In what form?

Effective Communication

1• Communicating Up – Which groups? How? How often?

2• Communicating Down – Which groups? How? How

often?

3• Communicating Sideways – How? How often?

4• How do you prefer to get information? Email? Print?

Website?

http://www.homevistingsummit.org

The Third National Summit will create a forum for home visiting researchers, program leaders, and policy makers to: • share the latest research; and • create strategies to ensure home visiting investments

are using evidence-based models, are backed by strong policies and are embedded in comprehensive early childhood systems.