Abstract
Early childhood home visiting to improve health and development is commonly delivered by child health care (CHC) whereas home visitors from the social services are rare. We applied a constructivist grounded theory approach to explore the practice and contributions of parental advisors from the preventive social services in a home visiting collaboration with CHC in a socioeconomically disadvantaged area of Sweden. The analysis rendered a conceptual model of a situation-based practice, built on interactive encounters between parents and professionals. It includes strengthening of positive parenting, connecting parents to additional services, early detection of needs and provision of psychosocial support in accordance with each family’s specific situation. Rooted in the training and experience in social work, the practice can be seen as contributory to the delivery of complex support to families through home visiting and could provide input to efforts of improving training of home visitors in different contexts.
Highlights
Nurturing Care in Early ChildhoodResearch from the field of early childhood development (ECD) in the last decade has consistently indicated the importance of ensuring that conditions of nurturing care are in place to enable children to develop to their full potential (Black et al, 2017; Britto et al, 2017; Irwin et al, 2007; World Health Organization et al, 2018)
Home visiting is often targeted at families who screen positively for “risk-factors” such as low income, young mothers, postnatal depression, drug use, or risk of child maltreatment, for example, in the different models included in the U.S Federal Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (Duggan et al, 2018)
Considering the limited literature on the participation of preventive social services in home visiting, the present study aimed to identify the practice of the parental advisors in the Rinkeby extended home visiting program and explore the possible contributions to the field of early childhood home visiting
Summary
Research from the field of early childhood development (ECD) in the last decade has consistently indicated the importance of ensuring that conditions of nurturing care are in place to enable children to develop to their full potential (Black et al, 2017; Britto et al, 2017; Irwin et al, 2007; World Health Organization et al, 2018). Home visiting, centerbased parenting programs and parenting groups are among such recommended interventions (Black et al, 2017; Britto et al, 2017; World Health Organization et al, 2018). Childhood home visiting has become increasingly common and programs vary widely in terms of goals, target population, length and dosage, delivery staff as well as policy context (Gomby, 2005; Sweet & Appelbaum, 2004).
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