Home Visiting Programs Support Families and Young Children
In North Carolina, home visiting programs, such as Nurse Family Partnership (NFP) and Parents As Teachers (PAT) Intervention, are the primary services for supporting families and young children to reduce child abuse and neglect, improve maternal–child interaction, and enhance positive parenting.
Home visiting programs also have the advantage of intervening very early to improve maternal and child health outcomes.
Some common activities performed by Home Visiting programs include
- screening for and responding to rick factors such as maternal depression, family violence and food insecurity
- assessing home safety and childproofing
- sharing information on safe sleep, breastfeeding and immunizations;
- linking families to needed resources such as Medicaid, housing, employment, etc.
Learn more here about the impacts of early childhood home visiting programs on health and how local Smart Start Partnerships can utilize these programs to address the health and development of infants and toddlers.
