Each Child. Every Community.

Child Trends has a new report on home visiting – What Works for Home Visiting Programs. The report synthesizes the findings from 66 rigorous evaluations of programs with a home visiting component. Overall, 32 programs had positive impacts on at least one child outcome, 23 had mixed reviews, and 11 were not proven to work.

Some key points:

• For programs serving early childhood (ages 0-3), “high-intensity” programs that lasted for more than one year and averaged four or more home visits per month have been found to be effective for one or more child outcomes.
• Among programs serving preschool-age children (ages 4-5), using trained non-professionals and conducting weekly home visits produced mixed results.
• While some studies have examined impacts for varied population subgroups, such as teen parents, the number of studies is, as yet, too small to reach conclusions. Conducting these analyses would allow us to better understand whether certain populations benefit more than others.