Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Homevisiting Grant Program - Purpose: The NYS MIECHV initiative aims to help pregnant women and parents of young children improve health and well-being for themselves and their families. This is accomplished by providing comprehensive home visiting services via the NFP and Healthy Families America (Healthy Families New York/HFNY) home visiting programs to eligible families living in communities that face barriers to achieving positive maternal and child health outcomes. Programming at both the local and state level is integrated within a comprehensive, coordinated system of perinatal, infant and early childhood services. Matching funds will be used to improve and expand home visiting service delivery to existing communities through the Nurse Family Partnership Expansion (NFPx). Goal(s) And Objectives: There are three overarching goals: improve pregnancy outcomes for pregnant women and babies, improve children’s health and development, and strengthen family functioning and life course. There are six objectives to meet these goals: 1.By 9/29/27, NFP and HFNY programs will have continuously implemented their programs in accordance with model elements established by the respective model developers. 2.By 9/29/27, NFP and HFNY programs will maintain an active enrollment of at least 85% of their maximum service capacity. 3.By 9/29/27, NFP and HFNY programs will increase reciprocal referrals between community agencies (e.g., hospitals, prenatal care providers, schools, WIC, local departments of social services) serving pregnant and newly parenting families. 4.By 9/29/27, NFP and HFNY will demonstrate improvements in measurable outcomes for participating families. 5.By 9/29/27, NYSDOH MIECHV staff will actively participate in workgroups to increase and strengthen coordination and integration of home visiting programs within larger maternal and infant health and early childhood services systems. 6.By 9/29/27, NYSDOH MIECHV staff will analyze MIECHV performance measures, and share the results with NFP and HFNY programs to collaboratively improve outcomes for all families served. Approach: The NYSDOH MIECHV initiative will support HFNY programs in six counties (Bronx, Erie, Kings, Monroe, Oneida, Queens), NFP projects in eight counties (Bronx, Erie, Kings, Monroe, Nassau, Niagara, Queens, and Richmond counties). The caseload of family slots of currently contracted programs is 3,402. The total proposed caseload of family slots is 3,295 for FFY 2025 and FFY 2026. NYS MIECHV participates in a variety of interagency and state-wide workgroups and initiatives related to perinatal, infant and child health and early childhood systems, ensuring home visiting is well-integrated into the larger systems. Use of Matching Funds: Match funding will be allocated across the seven MIECHV-funded NFP grantees to enroll additional individuals. The Department will work with the NSO to obtain a letter of support, confirming that the NFPx sites are in good standing. Awardees must then contact their HRSA. The Department will then contact their HRSA Project Officer for formal approval to use MIECHV funding for this purpose. The Department will amend the Project Workplan and other documents as necessary. Non-federal matching funds to be utilized are annual appropriated allocated by the NYS Legislature to NFP programs serving MIECHV-eligible clients and families. We do anticipate a potential reduction in caseload for FFY 2026 and FFY 2027 as a result of increased expenses per family for the HFNY program. However, it is also possible that we will see an increase in families served when NFPx is implemented. We do not yet know which programs will be seeking approval to provide NFPx services and cannot break down this potential increased caseload by LIA at this time. Additionally, if there aren't sufficient programs seeking to implement NFPx, we may distribute the match funding and give LIAs the option of allocating it towards traditional NFP and/or NFPx implementation.
