Staff
Home visitors are frontline staff from local agencies who work with families in their homes or another location. They are nurses, social workers, early childhood specialists, or paraprofessionals trained to conduct home visits with pregnant caregivers and families with young children.
Local agencies(Source: Local agencies are usually housed in a central location and serve families in nearby communities. They may also employ staff who provide administrative, data entry, or data management support. Local agencies are operated by state and local government offices, such as departments of health, human services, or education, as well as schools and school districts, hospitals and health clinics, Indigenous organizations, nonprofit organizations, and faith-based organizations.)Go to footnote #>1 strive to employ home visitors who can foster connections with families and develop trusting relationships. Educational requirements vary across local agencies and models. The Model Profiles provide more detail about educational requirements at the home visitor and supervisor levels.
What Do Home Visitors Do?
Among their many responsibilities, home visitors—
- Gather information to tailor services, such as screening caregivers for postpartum depression, substance use, and domestic violence or screening children for developmental delays
- Provide direct education and support to make homes safer, encourage positive parenting practices, promote safe sleep practices, and inform participants about child development
- Make referrals and coordinate services such as prenatal care, well-child visits, job training and education programs, early care and education, and if needed, mental health or domestic violence resources
What Do Supervisors Do?
Supervisors work with home visitors to promote their professional and personal growth. For example, they help home visitors reflect on their thoughts, feelings, and challenges to improve their practices with families. They help manage caseloads, ensure staff responsibilities are completed, and sometimes provide services to families directly.
Enhancing Home Visiting Through Workforce Development
The Institute for Home Visiting Workforce Development & Jackie Walorski Center for Evidence-Based Case Management gathers critical information about both workforce optimization and case management, provides skill-building opportunities for the home visiting workforce, and identifies and disseminates learnings from effective practices. Supporting the workforce, in turn, strengthens services delivered to families. As Case Management Center Director Amy Huffer points out, “A key driver of addressing the structural and social determinants of health for families participating in home visiting is case management. Our work in the Jackie Walorski Center represents a continued commitment to understanding the critical work of home visitors and how this work supports families.”