Friday, April 4, 2025
4/4/2025
Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Homevisiting Grant Program - Annotation: New Hampshire (NH) will serve pregnant people and families in all NH counties using the Healthy Families America (HFA) model and its Child Welfare Protocols (CWP.) This project period will continue the expansion NH began in late 2022, partnering with the NH Division for Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) in implement its Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) Prevention Plan, funding HFA-NH, expanding home visiting services to a broader range of families referred by DCYF to include children up to age two. During the project period, NH MIECHV will focus on implementation with fidelity, reducing missing data through training and technical assistance, and staff retention through ensuring adequate training, reasonable caseload expectations and building community and collaboration across MIECHV sites. Problem: NH is fortunate that for many indicators of health and well-being, the state ranks favorably when compared to national averages. However, state averages mask disparities among communities and sub-populations, and the opioid crisis has had a significant impact on NH children and families, bringing more families into contact with DCYF, placing them at risk of separation. NH families face challenges accessing quality childcare and housing. While the unemployment rate in NH is relatively low, many NH families struggle to maintain employment that can provide an income sufficient to meet the basic needs of food, shelter, transportation and quality child care while they work. Additionally, NH’s mental health system is taxed to the point that people may wait months for mental health services. Purpose: The purpose of this project is to implement voluntary, evidence-based services through the HFA model and coordinate comprehensive high-quality services to eligible families. HFA has remained NH’s model of choice for traditional referrals and those connected through DCYF using the CWP due to the HFA model’s proven outcomes in improving maternal and child health, child development, family economic self-sufficiency, and reducing child maltreatment. Goals and Objectives: GOAL 1: New Hampshire LIAs will implement the HFA home visiting model with fidelity, serving the HRSA-defined priority populations. Objective 1.1 NH MIECHV will support its LIAs in demonstrating fidelity to the HFA model through promoting familiarity with Best Practice Standards and HFA tools, with a focus on inclusivity and equity through quarterly data review. Objective 1.2 NH MIECHV will provide services to families across NH in an equitable manner, with a focus on enrolling members of unserved and underserved groups. GOAL 2: Reduce missing data across Forms 1 and 2 by 10 % where missing data is higher than 20%, in at least two measures per form. Objective 2.1 Provide personalized CQI support to NH LIAs, reviewing data on one or more performance measures on a monthly basis. Data analysis will focus on examining the impact of race, ethnicity, and language, among other demographics, on each measure. Goal 3: NH LIAs will retain 75% of newly hired staff for a period of greater than 1 year. Objective 3.1 Focus on staff recruitment and retention as a driver for family retention. Goal 4: Develop and maintain a suite of role-specific tools to support staff retention at the LIA level. Objective 4.1 Provide resources to LIA staff through various media to promote familiarity with community and training resources, performance measures, and one another, ensuring staff are well-connected throughout the program. Approach: NH LIAs will implement the HFA model with fidelity to priority populations in all NH counties, as identified in the 2020 Statewide Needs Assessment Update, with a focus on increasing enrollment and retention of child-welfare involved families. Additional efforts will include increasing enrollment of WIC participants through state-level collaboration. NH MIECHV proposes to serve 284 families at a given time during the project period.
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).