The design, marketing and evaluation of a universally-offered home visiting program present challenges to public health agencies and their community partners. Minnesota in 1997 established Minnesota Healthy Beginnings, which offers home visits to ALL families with newborns, irrespective of income, age or risk status. To be universal, MHB must appeal to and serve families from all sociodemographic groups. A series of twelve focus groups were conducted with expectant and new parents who were asked to describe an ideal home visit and ideal home visitor, the factors that would influence their acceptance of a home visit, the information they would like to receive during a visit and how that information should be packaged. The findings have informed the home visitor training, outreach strategies, promotional artwork and materials, and content of home visits. Also, the evaluation addresses the effectiveness of the program design and marketing methods (program universality), family satisfaction and community acceptance as well as the effectiveness of the multi-disciplinary governing coalition and various intermediate and long-term outcomes.
Highlights of the focus group findings will be presented and their benefits for guiding any program in which professionals and para-professionals make home visits to families with young children. Also, the evaluation tools and evaluation data from the first year of home visits will be presented.
Learning Objectives: 1)Describe at least four characteristics of an "ideal" home visitor as identified by parents (consumers). 2) List at least three strategies cited by consumers to promote acceptance of home visits. 3) Describe the influence of at least two program designs on family acceptance of a universal home visiting program
Keywords: Home Visiting, Health Promotion
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.