Project Title: Guam's Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting
Program Project Bisita I Familia
Recipient Name: Guam Department of Public Health and Social Services
Mailing Address: 155 Hesler Place Hagatna, GU 96910
Project Director: Margarita B. Gay
Contact number: (671) 634-7408
Email Address margarita.gay@dphss.guam.gov
Website http://www.dphss.guam.gov and http://www.projectbisita.org
The Guam Department of Public Health and Social Services, Bureau of Family Healthy and Nursing Services (DPHSS-BFHNS) is the lead agency responsible for the administration and implementation of Guam's Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, also known as Project Bisita I Familia (in the Chamoru language meaning, "to visit the family"). Project Bisita I Familia (PBIF) is an evidence-based home visiting service for pregnant women and families with young children at high-risk for poor outcomes. The voluntary program is intended to support delivering of coordinated and comprehensive high-quality early childhood home visiting services to eligible families.
The program goals and objectives are as follows:
Goal 1: Project Bisita I Familia will provide high-quality, voluntary, evidence-based home visiting services to families in communities identified to be high risk.
Objective 1: By September 30, 2025, 105 families in high-risk communities identified by the Updated 2020 MIECHV Needs Assessment will receive high-quality voluntary, evidence-based home visiting service by home visiting staff that reflects the culture and language of the family served.
Goal 2: Strengthen collaborative efforts with early childhood and other child and family-serving agencies.
Objective 1: By September 30, 2025, 90% of Project Bisita staff will attend four staff training and four parent workshops annually with other early childhood programs.
Goal 3: Enhance staffing and administrative structures to develop high-quality ongoing home visiting program staff training.
Objective 1: By September 30, 2025, Project Bisita will have seven home visitors certified in the HFA home-visiting model.
Goal 4: Expand the database system to improve the ability of Project Bisita to meet the data collection and reporting requirements.
Objective 1: By September 30, 2025, Project Bisita's data system will be enhanced and refined every six months to meet the requirements of the MIECHV federal grant and HFA evidence-based model.
Project Bisita uses the evidence-based Healthy Families America (HFA) home visiting model with the Parents as Teachers (PAT) Foundational Curriculum to provide services to enrolled families. Project Bisita can serve up to 105 families. The program currently serves 79 families. The program anticipates continuing service to these families and continue to enroll family to the program’s capacity limit. Project Bisita I Familia (PBIF) services include the previous villages Dededo, Yigo, and Mangilao. Based on the 2020 MIECHV updated need assessment, the PBIF will service Chalan Pago-Ordot, Agat, Asan-Maina, Hagatna, and Tamuning-Tumon-Harmon.
Project Bisita is part of the Guam Early Learning Council Social Emotional Wellness workgroup, which created a Multi-Agency Subcommittee that meets twice mo to discuss multi-agency involvement cases. This subcommittee allows all programs to provide input and suggestions for serving the families without duplicating services and lessens the number of visits by programs into the home.
The Guam Early Learning Council Early Learning workgroup, focuses on early care and education and includes all early childhood program representatives. This group works collaboratively to ensure that children's learning needs are met.
The Guam Early Learning Council Parent Engagement workgroup focuses on activities that engage families in the communities.