Summary of Pennsylvania Home Visitation Stakeholders Meeting February 20, 2013

Summary of Pennsylvania Home Visitation Stakeholders Meeting February 20, 2013

• Carrie Collins provided a brief overview of the new leadership structure for the Home Visitation Stakeholders. A list of Work Group chairs and and members, as well as the tasks to be addressed by each group, are attached. Work Group chairs will join state staff members in serving as a Steering Committee for the work of the Pennsylvania Home Visitation Stakeholders. Together they will plan the agendas for each meeting and monitor progress in achieving targeted goals.

• Work Group 1 (Defining Terms/Promoting Home Visiting/Sustainability), Work Group 2 (Collaborating Among Home Visiting Partners) and Work Group 3 (Competencies/Professional Development) met throughout the morning to clarify tasks, establish priorities, and delineate next steps.
• Work Group 1, led by Cathy Palm, advanced on the priority for developing a definition for home visiting. The definition will build from the Vision of the Pennsylvania Home Visiting Stakeholders (attached), describe the features of evidence-based models, and describe evidence-informed/promising practices (including how such models could advance toward evidence-based status. The definition will also specify what home visiting is now. A draft will be developed to share with stakeholders at the next meeting.

• Work Group 2, led by Lee Sizemore, identified an extensive list of possible actions. One area of focus will be MOUs. By working with OCDEL to gather samples of existing MOUs, the Work Group will be able to both identify examplars and identify opportunities to incorporate an emphasis on home visiting where there currently is none.

• Work Group 3, led by Mimi Gavigan, sketched out an agenda for developing home visiting competencies and increasing opportunities for professional development related to home visiting. One specific next step will be drafting and editing a set of home visiting competencies that aligns with other state early childhood frameworks (e.g., Core Body of Knowledge) for presentation to stakeholders at the June 4 meeting.

• Mimi Gaviganand Michelle Hillshared several highlights from the recent Home Visiting Summit in Washington DC. Mimi provided participants with copies of a recent publication from the PEW Charitable Trusts, Expanding Home Visiting Research: New Measures of Success (). To access information about conference sessions (PowerPoints, handouts), go to

• Michelle Hill provided updates on four components of evaluation that are, or soon will be, underway. These include benchmark data collection, state evaluation (Policy Lab), national evaluation (MIHOPE), and new component of national evaluation (MIHOPE-Strong Start). PowerPoint slides describing each of the four are available to download at

• Cathy Palm shared updates from the PA Task Force on Child Protection.
• A webinar titled “Addressing Domestic Violence within Home Visitation Settings: Children Exposed to Domestic Violence & Its Impact on Parenting” was held on Tuesday, February 19, 2013. The presentation slides, recording, and materials are available at
• There has been a call by over 150 national organizations to form a National Commission on Childrento assess the performance of the United States in meeting the needs of children, and make recommendations to improve child well-being. Go to for additional information.

• Michelle Hill provided a brief introduction to Pennsylvania’s Infant Early Learning GPS, a set of interactive resources that is designed to help families to “set the right course for their children’s success in kindergarten and beyond.” The Infant Early Learning GPS website () includes videos on how to use this resource to greatest advantage.

• Mimi Gaviganand Megan Pittsingershared several highlights from the quarterly home visiting reports. These ranged from presentations about MIECHV at local, regional and state conferences to a 30-minute video about the program in Spanish. They will be working on compiling and sharing examples from the reports on a regular basis.

• Shirley Keith-Knox described how families, early intervention providers, behavioral health providers, and community-based organizations in Allegheny County are implementing depression screening within the early intervention system and strengthening cross-system collaborations to improve care for families experiencing the related and often co-occurring challenges of parental depression and early childhood developmental delays. This work is being supported by the RAND Toolkit for Implementing Parental Depression Screening. Referral and Treatment Across Systemswhich is available to download at

• Pat Yodershared information about Title V, Healthy Start, and then offered a framework (Life Course Perspective) that can complement home visiting efforts. Pat’s PowerPoint slides are posted at Additional information about the Life Course Perspective Framework is available at

• Karen Shanoskiprovided an overview of another framework that aligns effectively with home visiting work, Strengthening Families. Karen’s slides are available at Additional information about Strengthening Families approach and the protective factors framework are available at

• After the presentations, small groups discussed ways in which these frameworks integrate with each other and could mesh with/support home visiting work. A document summarizing ways to connect the Strengthening Families framework with home visiting strategies is available to download at

• Camille shared a new list of resources to support your work (attached and available to download at )

• Mark your calendars. The next Home Visitation Stakeholder meetings in 2013 will be on June 4,2013.

1. Defining Terms/ Promoting HV/ Sustainability

• Develop a simple diagram of the home visiting system in PA

• Identify other groups with which to communicate on a regular basis

1. Collaborating Among Home Visiting Partners

• Identify criteria for collaboration
• Identify additional programs with which to actively and collaboratively partner in the delivery of home visitation services

• Identify strategies for engaging additional partners
• Identify priorities in strategies for promoting collaboration

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1. Competencies/Professional Development

• Review input related to who, what, how
• Identify strategies for inventory-ing PD efforts that are currently underway
• Identify priorities for PD (who, what, how) at local, program, and state levels

• Review any ground work that has been done in PA
• Identify connections between existing PA early childhood competencies (e.g,. Core Body of Knowledge, Early Learning Guidelines) and home visiting competencies
• Identify examples of core competencies or sequences of professional development (national, other states)

1. Continuous Quality Improvement

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Home Visiting ResourcesFebruary 2013

Twelve New Reports of Home Visiting Research Available
The Pew Home Visiting Campaign recently published 12 new reports of home visiting research. The reports highlight those program elements that are essential to success, ways to improve existing models, and factors to consider in tailoring home visiting to local contexts and particular target populations. These studies underscore the need for continued evaluation and monitoring of home visiting services in order to maximize effectiveness as programs expand to serve more families in a greater diversity of settings. The full reports and executive summaries are available at

Study Says Early Home Visits Show School Benefits

Children whose families took part in a home-visiting program in their earliest years showed some positive benefits once they enrolled in school, compared with their peers who did not receive home visits, according to a recently-released study from Healthy Families New York, a home visitation program that enrolls about 5,600 families each year. Read more at
benefits.html

Proven Benefits of Early Childhood Interventions

This 2005 RAND study synthesized what is known from the scientifically sound research literature about the short- and long-term benefits from early intervention programs. Key findings include the following:

• Early childhood intervention programs have been shown to yield benefits in academic achievement, behavior, educational progression and attainment, delinquency and crime, and labor market success, among other domains.
• Interventions with better-trained caregivers and smaller child-to-staff ratios appear to offer more favorable results.
• Well-designed early childhood interventions have been found to generate a return to society ranging from $1.80 to $17.07 for each dollar spent on the program.

Compiled by Camille Catlett (919) 966-6635

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