Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Homevisiting Grant Program - Purpose: Kansas aims to expand and strengthen its Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program to reduce infant mortality, prevent child abuse and neglect, support strong families, and promote safe, nurturing environments for child development and school readiness. The project will serve pregnant women and families with children from birth to kindergarten entry in high-risk communities through evidence-based home visiting models, including Parents as Teachers and Healthy Families America. Services will be delivered by trained professionals who coordinate care across the early childhood and maternal and child health systems. Additional funding will support increasing Local Implementing Agency (LIA) awards to retain the existing workforce and expand services into new at-risk counties. State matching funds be used to support the delivery of evidence-based home visiting services. Goals and Objectives: Kansas’ MIECHV project is guided by the following goals: • Increase access to evidence-based home visiting. • Improve the quality of services. • Expand MIECHV services to new at-risk communities. • Leverage needs assessment data and formal evaluation of the lead agency model to inform regional expansion efforts. • Improve home visiting workforce wellbeing and retention. • Enhance administrative and infrastructure systems. • Deepen home visiting integration within the broader early childhood system. Objectives aligned to these goals include: • Implement evidence-based home visiting in new at-risk counties. • Engage in continuous quality improvement and change evaluation with established LIAs. • Leverage data and community input to drive strategic expansion. • Provide home visitors with enhanced wellbeing support and incentives. • Increase collaboration with other early childhood programs and home visiting leaders both within the KDHE and throughout the state. Approach: Kansas will continue delivering two Evidence Based Home Vising models, Healthy Families America (HFA) and Parents as Teachers (PAT), through the work of our existing four LIAs. The maximum capacity of existing LIAs in Year 1 and Year 2 will be 556. We will be serving the following communities: • Greenbush – Southeast Kansas Hub. Counties Served: Cherokee, Labette, Montgomery, Neosho, Wilson, Woodson, Allen, Bourbon, Crawford, Miami, Chautauqua, Elk, Cowley, and Linn. Model: PAT. Maximum Capacity: 284 • KCK Public Schools, USD 500. Counties Served: Wyandotte. Model: PAT. Maximum Capacity: 71. • Turner, USD 202. Counties Served: Wyandotte. Model: PAT. Maximum Capacity: 67. • United Government Public Health Department. Counties Served: Wyandotte. Model: HFA. Maximum Capacity: 134. We are moving forward with expansion efforts in Southeast Kansas to include Greenwood, Coffey and Anderson counties in Year 1. Efforts to establish a new LIA in Year 1 will focus on Southwest Kansas. This growth may require adjustments to capacity numbers in those areas in Year 2. Matching Funds: Kansas uses state match funding from the Kansas Children’s Cabinet and Trust Fund to support evidence-based home visiting services through the Parents as Teachers model. These state investments, drawn from tobacco settlement funds, have supported Kansas home visiting for over two decades. Although match funds are administered through a different agency, historical data can be used to estimate the number of participants served. Kansas has consistently met its match requirement and anticipates continued support to expand service reach.
