Mounting evidence is showing that well-focused investments in early childhood development yield high public and private returns. Among the different strategies that encourage positive outcomes in young children, home visiting programs have seen some of the most promising results. Many states have made substantial commitments to these programs, which send trained visitors to the homes of expectant and new parents to support them in providing safe, healthy environments to their children.

Although a growing body of research has been evaluating the merits of different home visiting models, much less is known about what it takes to reproduce and sustain proven programs successfully in new settings. This web seminar will explore some of the difficulties and challenges states and the programs they support encounter in building systems that reproduce positive results. Panelists will discuss:

• Addressing implementation challenges such as participant engagement and model fidelity
• Determining appropriate outcomes and measuring effects in a way that informs policy and practice decisions
• Securing appropriate and sustainable funding streams
• Navigating the political and professional battles that surface when home visitation programs are grafted onto existing service delivery systems or seek to satisfy the diverse desires of multiple stakeholders
• Sustaining legislative and public support

Researchers from Chapin Hall will draw examples from their research on home visitation services developed as part of building an early intervention system in Cuyahoga County in Ohio (Cleveland) to illustrate how some of these issues played out.

Panelists include:

• Deborah Daro, Research Fellow, Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago
• Eboni Howard, Associate Research Scientist, Herr Research Center for Children and Social Policy at the Erikson Institute
• Lisa Schreiber, Director of Healthy Families America, Prevent Child Abuse America
• Susan Stepleton, President and CEO, Parents as Teachers National Center
• Moderator: Martha Shirk, Author, On Their Own: What Happens to Kids When They Age Out of the Foster Care System

This web seminar is made possible by the generosity of the Col. Stanley R. McNeil Foundation.