Family Home Visiting (FHV)
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Family Home Visiting
Governor Tim Walz proclaimed the week of April 21-25, 2025 as: Home Visitor Appreciation Week. Visit Home Visitor Appreciation Week (PDF) to read and download.
Families are central to the healthy physical, social and emotional development of infants and young children. However, many Minnesota families face challenges that impact the development of their children during the critical early years of life. Stressors such as poverty and adverse experiences disproportionately affect children and families in economically, socially, and environmentally disadvantaged communities. Frequent exposure to these stressors and adverse experiences lead to the likelihood of individuals facing health disparities later in life.
Family home visiting is a voluntary, home-based service ideally delivered prenatally through the early years of a child's life. It provides social, emotional, health-related and parenting support and information to families and links them to appropriate resources. Some examples of services a family may receive during a home visit are:
- Connections/referrals for pregnant women to prenatal care.
- Early support to parents in their role as a child’s first teacher.
- Help in creating a safe and healthy environment for a young child to thrive.
- Parenting skills and support that decrease the risk of child abuse.
Depending on the goals identified by a family and based on developmental and risk assessments, a family may work with a home visitor from the prenatal period through a child’s third birthday. Some programs serve families with children up to age five years. Through consistent and planned home visits, parents and caregivers learn how to improve their family's health and provide better opportunities for their children.
To learn more about family home visiting in Minnesota, see the Family Home Visiting Executive Fact Brief, 2023 (PDF).
Who we serve
The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) family home visiting section offers consultation, technical assistance, professional development, data collection, evaluation, continuous quality improvement (CQI) and grants management to local public health and tribal health programs providing home visiting services to families across the state. The MDH family home visiting section convenes the Family Home Visiting Advisory Group to enable communication between MDH, local public health departments, tribal governments, other early childhood partners, as well as to facilitate effective implementation of family home visiting programming through local and state guidance and support. For further information about the Family Home Visiting Advisory Group contact: health.mch@state.mn.us
Benefits of home visiting
Research in early brain development indicates that experiences in the first few years of a child's life are the most critical and can have far-reaching consequences. Family home visiting services that are grounded in empirically based research and target those most at risk have been shown to successfully mitigate adverse childhood experiences and change the life trajectory of a child and her/his family. Family home visiting is an effective upstream intervention that serves as a key link to other early childhood interventions and community supports, such as health care, mental health, early intervention, early care and education, and other services that promote healthy child development and collectively make a difference in the lives of children and their families.
The provision of services to pregnant and parenting teens is a priority for many home visiting programs, given strong evidence of poor outcomes for these individuals and their families, such as higher rates of prematurity, low birthweight, developmental delays, lower high-school graduation rates, and an increased risk of lifelong, intergenerational poverty.
Notable benefits to Minnesota families who have received early intervention through home visiting services include:
- Improved maternal and newborn health.
- Reduction of child injuries, abuse, neglect and/or maltreatment.
- Improvements in school readiness and parent-child relationships.
- Reduction of domestic violence.
- Economic self-sufficiency of families.
Grantee spotlights
Supporting Hands Nurse-Family Partnership (SHNFP) has been helping first-time parents have healthy pregnancies, improve child health and development, and help mothers become more economically self-sufficient for over 16 years. Since 2012, SHNFP has been doing so as an MDH family home visiting grantee. To learn more about their work, reach, and positive impact on children and families, read Grantee spotlight: Supporting Hands Nurse-Family Partnership (PDF).
YWCA Mankato was established in 1936 and has been actively contributing to Southern Minnesota by offering a diverse range of programs for women. Their culturally specific and multilingual team is dedicated to serving the Latinx, Somali, and additional East African communities. They deliver the curriculum and support services with cultural insight and language proficiency, ensuring that families receive personalized assistance in their home language.
Through home visiting, women and their families can connect one-on-one with a culturally competent and bilingual outreach worker, who is their main point of contact. Guided by the three impact areas, YWCA Mankato’s program connects caregivers to local healthcare providers and services, addresses economic wellbeing through early childhood education, illuminates the experiences of immigrant and refugee women and their families, and empowers them to lead lives with peace, justice, freedom, and dignity. To read more, visit YWCA Mankato: Family Home Visiting Grantee (PDF).
Family Spirit home visitor Leah Staples has worked at the Northwest Indian Community Development Center (NWICDC) in Bemidji for two years as a Family Spirit home visitor. She has a caseload of 30 families and a waiting list of 35 more, most of whom are self-referred. Her reputation as a caring, knowledgeable, and non-judgmental support professional has grown in this rural community. “Most of my families come to me for support and education,” she shares, “but others are in crisis, maybe experiencing incarceration, homelessness, or substance use. I just meet them where they are and fully listen to them. Many of these families experiencing challenges never had parenting themselves, perhaps they grew up in foster care.”
To read more of Leah's story, Leah Staples: Family Spirit Home Visitor (PDF)
Family home visiting program structure and models
The family home visiting program structure varies across the state depending on the demographics of the community served, the type of home visiting provided (i.e. short-term or long-term) and whether or not the program is using an evidence-based service model. Currently, MDH provides consultation and/or financial support for the implementation of six evidence-based home visiting models in the state: Family Spirit, Healthy Families America, Parents as Teachers, Early Head Start, Family Connects and Nurse-Family Partnership. See the information for home visitors and supervisors webpage for more information on these models.
How family home visiting is funded
Family home visiting services in Minnesota are supported by a number of funding streams including state, federal and local resources. At the state level, MDH oversees and distributes funding for home visiting services provided under Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) funding, the federal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program, Minnesota Evidence-based home visiting, and Minnesota's Nurse-Family Partnership legislation. Funding administered by MDH is granted to Community Health Boards, Tribal Governments, and non-profits. Other funding streams in Minnesota include local tax levies and Medical Assistance reimbursement. For more information go to the funding and grants management web page.
Family home visiting e-bulletin and communications
To receive MDH family home visiting communications for local public health and tribal family home visiting programs, sign-up for the Tuesday Topics e-bulletin.