Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Homevisiting Grant Program - Purpose: Arizona aims to implement voluntary evidence-based and evidence-informed home visiting programs, delivered by trained educators, in communities identified in the needs assessment, to improve maternal and child health outcomes for families. Home visiting program contracts are established with state agencies, county health departments, tribal nations and non-profit organizations to implement the following models: Family Spirit, Healthy Families, Parents as Teachers, SafeCare Augmented, Maternal and Early Childhood Sustained Home-visiting and Health Start. Goals and Objectives: a) Support voluntary evidence-based and evidence-informed approach home visiting programs that are accessible to eligible families, resulting in positive outcomes in at least 4 of the 6 benchmark areas, by implementing home visiting services in at-risk communities with an overall caseload capacity of 2,486 and evaluate the promising approach through an institute of higher education. b) Improve coordination and share information pertaining to the Arizona Home Visiting System to maximize funding, support, services and resources for home visitors, supervisors and eligible families by convening the Strong Families AZ Home Visiting Alliance; use technology to provide information and training to home visitors, supervisors and families; coordinate early childhood efforts and outcomes; maintain the statewide data management system; and strengthen community capacity to improve health outcomes. c) Ensure program implementation oversight to meet the grant goals, objectives, budget and activities by maximizing human and financial resources; utilize tools to appropriately and accurately track activities and timelines; participate in meetings, conferences and seek technical assistance to meet the grant requirements and improve the health and wellbeing of Arizona’s families. Approach: To achieve the goals of this grant, Arizona will: implement voluntary evidence-based home visiting programs and a promising approach model in at-risk communities with effective oversight and guidance; collect, compile and report data to ensure the fidelity of the models being used and progress toward benchmarks; and coordinate services across the early childhood system. During this project period the MIECHV program will be going through the Request for Grant Application process through the Arizona Procurement system. The competitive process will allow us to determine agencies which best fit the needs of the community. All service areas are identified as at-risk in the 2020 MIECHV Needs Assessment, serve tribal members, have a higher population of Black and African American people, and/or are home to individuals who are pregnant under the age of 21. MIECHV funds are used to support programs in 37 urban, 29 rural, 4 frontier and 5 tribal communities in 25 local implementing agencies. Arizona’s current caseload capacity is 2,486 family slots. Arizona proposes a caseload capacity of 1,568 from September 30, 2026-September 29, 2028 for evidence-based home visiting models. Currently, we are serving 918 family slots with our promising approach program, Health Start. The matching funds will be utilized to extend services during the project period and support the outreach and referral program, Family Connects. First Thing First is a state funded agency dedicated to early childhood programs and services that address the development, education and health needs of children birth to age five. First Things First will provide the non-federal contribution and meet the matching requirements to improve outcomes for individual families and core components of the MIECHV Program.
