Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Homevisiting Grant Program - Project Title: Massachusetts Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Initiative Recipient Name: Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) Address: 250 Washington Street, 5th Floor, Boston, MA 02108 Project Director Name: Christine Silva Contact Phone Number: (978) 875-5785 Email Address: christine.silva@mass.gov Web Site Address: www.mass.gov/dph/homevisiting Funds Requested: $10,398,632 ($9,013,305 base, $1,385,327 federal match) Annotation: Massachusetts Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MA MIECHV) provides evidence-based home visiting services in 18 communities to improve family and child health and well-being. MA MIECHV priorities include delivering data-driven programming to families affected by substance use, housing instability, and child welfare involvement and improving service coordination within the early childhood system of care. Problem: Ensuring every family should have access to the type of home visiting support they need, when and where they need it takes time, resources, and collaboration with partners and communities to scale an effective home visiting system that meets the needs and preferences of families with young children in Massachusetts. Purpose: MA MIECHV supports efforts to implement evidence-based home visiting, improve health and developmental outcomes for children and families through alignment with Title V, and promote coordination with early childhood and perinatal systems of care. Goal and Objectives: MA MIECHV goals aim to strengthen state Title V activities, enhance coordination of services within early childhood systems of care, and provide comprehensive supports to improve family outcomes. The objectives are to: 1) implement two evidence-based home visiting models; 2) serve families residing in MA MIECHV communities; 3) demonstrate improvement in MIECHV benchmark areas; 4) increase connections to evidence-based home visiting from Welcome Family, a universal postpartum home visiting program that serves as a recruitment and systems building strategy; 5) provide fiscal and programmatic subrecipient monitoring; 6) conduct a Coordinated State Evaluation; 7) achieve progress on Title V priorities; 8) coordinate and streamline supports with state, local, and national partners; and 9) elevate the visibility of MIECHV. Approach: MA MIECHV will support 22 LIAs to implement Parents as Teachers (PAT) and Healthy Families Massachusetts (HFM) in 18 communities: Boston, Brockton, Chelsea, Everett, Fall River, Fitchburg, Holyoke, Lawrence, Lowell, Lynn, New Bedford, North Adams, Pittsfield, Revere, Southbridge, Springfield, Webster, and Worcester. Priority populations include families affected by substance use, homelessness or housing instability, and involvement with the child welfare system. The proposed annual caseload is 1,681 for FY 2025 and FY 2026. MA MIECHV will leverage state general funds legislatively appropriated and obligated for home visiting with HFM evidence-based home visiting model through the Children’s Trust. Matching funds will be used to expand evidence-based home visiting by adding 83 caseload slots to the PAT model.
