Assistant Secretary Contreras Visits the Pascua Yaqui Tribe to Announce the Administration for Children and Families Awarding Nearly $3 Million in Tribal Home Visiting Grants

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families’ (ACF) Assistant Secretary January Contreras was welcomed by the Pascua Yaqui Tribe last week as she congratulated them on their new Tribal Home Visiting grant. ACF recently announced $2.975 million dollars in awards to seven new tribes, including the Pascua Yaqui Tribe.

The Tribal Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Development and Implementation Grant (DIG) supports 63-month grants between ACF and tribal entities to:

• Conduct community needs and readiness assessments.
• Develop the infrastructure needed for planning and implementing evidence-based maternal, infant, and early childhood home visiting programs.
• Provide high-quality, evidence-based home visiting services to pregnant women and families with young children aged birth to kindergarten entry.
• Implement performance measurement and continuous quality improvement activities.
• Engage in activities to strengthen early childhood systems of support for families with young children.

The DIG grants are intended for communities that do not have experience with implementing culturally relevant evidence-based home visiting programs. This is the first time since 2016 that ACF has been able to provide funding to communities totally new to Tribal home visiting.

These grants are part of the Tribal MIECHV program, which develops and strengthens tribal capacity to support and promote the health and well-being of American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) families. The Tribal MIECHV program is part of the broader MIECHV program, an initiative that supports states, territories, and Tribal entities to implement evidence-based home visiting models to support expectant families and families with children from birth to kindergarten entry. Information about the systematic review that identifies models with evidence of effectiveness from research is available at the Home Visiting Evidence of Effectiveness website, https://homvee.acf.hhs.gov/ .

“I was pleased to be there on behalf of the Administration for Children and Families to meet with leaders and representatives from the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and learn from and congratulate them on receiving a Tribal Home Visiting award,” said ACF Assistant Secretary Contreras. “I also congratulate the other six tribes who received these awards. The Tribal Home Visiting program will be a tremendous asset to a system of supports for families. President Biden is committed to working with tribes to equitably expand access to early childhood programs like home visiting, by increasing capacity and our understanding of the supports required for tribes to provide critically needed services.”

While on site, Assistant Secretary Contreras spoke at the signing ceremony of a historic memorandum of understanding between the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and the Arizona Department of Child Safety regarding a collaboration to implement Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) safeguards and to protect, promote and strengthen Tribal families. She also met with Pima County Superior Court judges and Pascua Yaqui leaders to discuss their ICWA court. “It is a privilege to witness the commitment between the Pascua Yaqui Tribe, the Arizona Department of Child Safety and the Pima County Superior Court to advancing their government-to-government relationships and to collaborate for the benefit of the Tribe’s children and families,” said Assistant Secretary Contreras.

“The Biden-Harris administration is deeply committed to supporting the health, learning, and well-being of young American Indian and Alaska Native children and their families,” said ACF Office of Early Childhood Development Deputy Assistant Secretary Katie Hamm. “We are thrilled to provide opportunities for new tribal communities to join the Tribal MIECHV program for the first time in more than five years. These awards are an opportunity for these communities to build capacity to meet the needs of their families using home visiting programs that are evidence-based and can be enhanced to reflect their own cultural characteristics. We look forward to partnering with and supporting this new group of grantees as they develop their programs and leverage these funds to provide critical services for the young children and families in their communities.”

The seven new Tribal Home Visiting DIG grantees are: