Friday, May 9, 2025
5/9/2025
Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Homevisiting Grant Program - Purpose: Maine’s MIECHV Program provides effective delivery and ongoing improvement of Maine’s statewide home visiting services with fidelity to the Parents as Teachers (PAT) evidence-based model, as part of a coordinated statewide early childhood system. The goal of this project is to implement a comprehensive and inclusive statewide system to improve the physical and relational health and well-being of Maine’s most vulnerable children and families. Goals and Objectives: Goal 1. Improve maternal, infant, child and family physical and relational health and wellbeing for participating families. Objective 1.a. Engage eligible families with PAT evidence-based home visiting services by maintaining Maine Families enrollment levels as a percentage of point-in-time capacity. Objective 1.b. Retain vulnerable families with PAT by maintaining or increasing retention of eligible families. Objective 1.c. Explore opportunities for program participants to authentically engage in advisory and collaborative roles to create more inclusive and equitable systems. Goal 2. Maintain and continuously improve statewide delivery of evidence-based PAT services by Maine Families with fidelity and high quality. Objective 2.a. Support continued fidelity and quality of PAT delivery by maintaining and strengthening state-level systems of supports for LIAs including performance-based contracting, oversight, trainings, policies, data systems, technical assistance, continuous quality improvement (CQI) monitoring, supported through state-level CQI process. New 2023: Objective 2.b. Support LIA’s ability to maintain maximum staffing capacity by exploring additional system-wide strategies and monitor the impact of new hiring qualifications for Maine Families staff. Goal 3. Develop and improve health equity practices around diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. New 2023: Objective 3.a. Maintain a staff demographic dataset to compare with participant demographic data and monitor for staff diversification within the system. Objective 3.b. Maintain statewide Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility workgroup. Objective 3.c. Identify funding support to identify health disparities in MIECHV performance measure data and family engagement. Methodology: i. There is no substantive change to the evidence-based model since the last grant award in FY2021. Maine’s MIECHV Program implements the PAT model across all 11 LIAs statewide. PAT is designed to serve communities with needs related to poverty, substance use and violence. Maine continues to utilize PAT because of its strength based, family-centered and respectful approach and it fits with Maine communities’ and programs’ philosophy. This single-model approach allows Maine Families to streamline program infrastructure supports provided to the LIAs, such as staff trainings and professional development, data collection requirements, and technical assistance, and creates consistency in State-funded home visiting services; ii. Results from Maine’s 2020 needs assessment indicate the statewide approach to home visiting services, which has been in place in Maine since 2000, continues to be appropriate. The Maine Families Standards of Practice, policies and procedures, and contracts with LIAs ensure services are prioritized for high-risk populations as defined by federal statute; iii. The current caseload (1,174) of MIECHV family slots will be maintained for each fiscal year within the FY 2023 formula award period of performance; iv. Since 2017, Maine Families has partnered with the CradleME referral system to link to community resources and supports, his partnership will continue through FY2023. LIAs conduct outreach to referral sources such as birthing hospitals, medical providers, WIC, PHN, the Office of Child and Family Services and other community providers. Formal agreements to identify families eligible for services, where appropriate, are developed.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).