Home Visitation Model Research Articles

From Sports Fans to Nurturers:

This article is based on an in-depth qualitative study of efforts by an Early Head Start program to include fathers in program activities with the aim of supporting and strengthening their involvement in their children's lives. Since this program employs a home-visiting model of service delivery, our focus is on the work and experiences of home-visiting staff. Our key findings concern the evolutionary development of program thinking and practice regarding fathers and father involvement; barriers or challenges to father involvement; and successful strategies for engaging fathers on both a programmatic and an individual family basis. Unlike most previous research on father involvement, this study provides a close-up look at staff experiences as they attempt to involve fathers in programming for infants and toddlers. Although significant barriers to father involvement were identified, certain approaches and strategies proved most effective in encouraging father engagement in key program components and with their youngest children. Language: en

Paraprofessional home visitation: Conceptual and pragmatic considerations

The adaptation for paraprofessional visitors of a home visitation model originally developed for nurses is described. There are several hypothesized benefits of using paraprofessional home visitors, including power as role models and increased empathy with clients. Challenges inherent in employing paraprofessionals include limited formal education and resulting lack of credibility among professional care providers, difficulties in acculturation to the workplace, and learning how to effectively focus their commitment to and identification with the community. These challenges result in the need for unique training and sensitive and consistent supervision. Implementation data from the randomized trial of home visitation in Denver indicate that paraprofessional visitors conducted the program according to the prescribed visitation schedule and covered the material appropriately. Differences that emerged between nurse and paraprofessional visitors regarding content covered are discussed and suggestions are made for future programmatic considerations. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Outcomes of a home visitation trial for pregnant and postpartum women at-risk for child placement

This study is a randomized clinical trial designed to test the psychosocial efficacy of a pre- and postpartum home visitation model for women at-risk for out-of-home placement of their newborns. Two hundred twenty-five pregnant women with high risk pregnancies for psychosocial reasons were recruited into the study and randomly assigned to an experimental ( n = 125 ) or control condition ( n = 100 ) when they presented for prenatal care at a large urban clinic. After an average of 16 months of exposure to the intervention, women in the experimental group reported significantly greater access to services and there was a trend for the experimental group to show a decrease in psychological distress. At 10 months, there was a trend for experimental group women to experience an increase in social support, but this was not sustained at 16 months. Although the difference was not statistically significant, a higher percentage of women in the experimental group had children in out-of-home living arrangements. There was also a trend among those with children in placement, for children of experimental group women to be placed in extended family care rather than foster care more frequently than controls. The implications of the findings for interventions with at-risk families are discussed.