The Tribal Home Visiting Program is designed to develop and strengthen tribal capacity to support and promote the health and well-being of American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) families; expand the evidence-base around home visiting in tribal communities; and support and strengthen cooperation and linkages between programs that service AIAN children and their families.
Program Goals
The goals of the Tribal Home Visiting Program include:
- Supporting the development of happy, healthy, and successful American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) children and families through a coordinated home visiting strategy that addresses critical maternal and child health, development, early learning, family support, and child abuse and neglect prevention needs.
- Implementing high-quality, culturally-relevant, evidence-based home visiting programs in AIAN communities.
- Expanding the evidence base around home visiting interventions with Native populations.
- Supporting and strengthening cooperation and coordination and promoting linkages among various early childhood programs, resulting in coordinated, comprehensive early childhood systems.
Grant Activities
Funds under the Tribal Home Visiting Program support:
- Conducting a needs and readiness assessment of the tribal community or communities.
- Developing a plan to address identified needs by implementing high-quality, culturally-relevant evidence-based home visiting programs.
- Providing high-quality, culturally-relevant, evidence-based home visiting services to pregnant women, expectant fathers, and parents and caregivers of children under age 5.
- Establishing, measuring, and reporting on progress toward meeting legislatively mandated benchmarks for participating children and families.
- Conducting rigorous local program evaluation activities to address local priorities and build the evidence base around home visiting in AIAN communities.
Home Visiting Models
Due to the limited evidence base on effective home visiting in tribal communities, Tribal Home Visiting grantees may adopt home visiting models that are either evidence-based or considered a promising approach. Model selection is designed to be a collaborative and community-driven process based on the needs and readiness assessment findings.
In 2014, one home visiting model previously implemented in tribal communities, was found to meet the HHS criteria for evidence of effectiveness by the Home Visiting Evidence of Effectiveness systematic review.
Home visiting models selected by Tribal Home Visiting grantees include Parents as Teachers, Family Spirit, Nurse Family Partnership, and the Parent Child Assistance Program.