Home visitation in vulnerable populations

The Houston Department of Health and Human Services (HDHHS) developed and implemented the Healthy Families Healthy Futures (HFHF) program based on the national model of Healthy Families America (HFA) in August 2006. The purpose of HFHF program is to prevent child abuse and neglect by providing intense home visitation by trained staff. Approximately three million cases of child abuse and neglect are reported to Child Protective Services (CPS) annually. Despite these reported cases, more than half of the fatalities from child abuse are often unknown to CPS. As many as three children die from child abuse and neglect each day.

The goal of HFHF is to promote positive parenting skills, educate the family on child health and development, and prevent child abuse and neglect in families that are overburdened and at risk for poor outcomes. In order to achieve these goals, families enrolled into HFHF are visited by trained staff weekly for three years. The home visitor incorporates the Growing Great Kids curriculum using two basic steps. The first step is to engage the family through education on positive parenting skills. The second step is to screen the target child for development delays (4 months – 3 years) with a questionnaire.

As this program is ongoing, lessons learned are currently being implemented into the program. One critical lesson learned thus far is the importance of training staff and providing them with specific tools to assist families with crisis management.