3-180 - Research, evaluation, and quality improvement in early childhood home visiting: Different paths to the same destination?

Session Type: Conversation Roundtable

Integrative Statement

The past few years have seen unprecedented scale up of evidence-based early childhood home visiting through the Affordable Care Act’s creation of the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program. The need for voluntary, evidence-based home visiting is evident in population-based indicators of child health, development, and school readiness. Even so, states and communities find it challenging to engage families, as measured by various indicators including recruitment, retention, visit intensity, home visitor ratings of family engagement during visits, and follow through on guidance between visits. As a result, family engagement has been designated at the national level and in many states as a top priority for innovation and improvement. Theoretical frameworks and approaches to improve family engagement are varied and many efforts focus on fidelity and service quality as mediators of engagement.

This conversation will consider the advantages, disadvantages, congruence, and potential synergy of three approaches to improving service delivery – research, evaluation, and quality improvement. It will do so by focusing on initiatives within the MIECHV Program using these three approaches to advance the field’s success in engaging families. Panelists are leaders in these initiatives, including MIHOPE (the national randomized trial and implementation study), HVRN (priority-driven studies carried out in a national practice-based research network), DOHVE (technical assistance to MIECHV grantees on benchmarks, evaluation, and quality improvement), state-level evaluations, and HV-CoIIN (rapid-cycle quality improvement learning collaborative). Panelists will discuss and raise questions about the role each approach has for advancing early childhood home visiting. Moderator: Anne Duggan

Sub Unit

• Family Context & Processes

Moderator

• Anne Duggan, Johns Hopkins University

Panelists

• Jon Korfmacher, Erikson Institute

• Jill Filene

• Deborah Perry, Georgetown University