Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program Guidance from HHS
On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (also known as the Affordable Care Act or ACA) which included, among other critical provisions, $1.5 billion in mandatory funding over 5 years for high quality, evidence-based, voluntary early childhood home visitation services. This investment will significantly expand home visitation services, helping to ensure that more children have the opportunity to grow up healthy, safe, ready to learn, and able to become productive members of society.
The Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program has made grants available to States, Tribes, to deliver voluntary home visitation services to eligible families to promote a range of positive outcomes for children and families, including improvements in maternal and prenatal health, infant health, child health and development, parenting related to child development outcomes, school readiness, and families' socioeconomic status, and reductions in child abuse, neglect and injuries. By selecting an array of service delivery models that, together, have demonstrated positive outcomes in benchmark areas and participant outcomes specified in the law, eligible entities will help improve outcomes and opportunities for vulnerable children and families.
Legislation
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Public Law 111-148) creates the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting program under Subtitle L of the ACA titled Maternal and Child Health Services.
Guidance
The Department of Health and Human Services, through both the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and The Administration for Children and Families (ACF), has provided guidance to states and tribes to help them conduct required needs assessments, select effective home visiting models, plan for and begin coordinating those home visiting programs into a comprehensive early childhood system of services and supports, plan for an begin collecting required data and otherwise successfully implementing the MIECHV program. The guidance issued as of March 25, 2011 is set forth below.
Guidance for States
- June 10, 2010- Funding Opportunity Announcement
- July 23, 2010- Federal Register Notice
- August 19, 2010- Supplemental Information Request for the Submission of Statewide Needs Assessment
- February 8,2011- Supplemental Information Request for the Submission of the Updated State Plan for a State Home Visiting Program
- June 1, 2011- FY 2011 Funding Opportunity Announcement (Competitive)
- June 21, 2011- FY 2011 Funding Opportunity Announcement (Formula)
- Evidenced-Based Model Crosswalk to Benchmarks
- To learn more about the evidence criteria used to determine which models HHS considers and will consider to be evidence based would be used as part of this program, visit the Home Visiting Evidence of Effectiveness Website.
- State Lead Agency Contacts as of August 2010
- Funding Allotments for States1 (For FY2010)
Guidance for Tribes
- June 24, 2010- Initial Funding Opportunity Announcement
- September 29, 2010- Tribal Grant Awards
Quick Links
- CLASP comments on Proposed Criteria for Evidence of Effectiveness of Home Visiting Models
- March 24, 2010 - Health care reform includes historic investment in prevention services.Read more.
- May 11, 2010 - HRSA and ACF release introductory information on new home visiting program. Read more.
- June 17, 2010 - HHS releases funding announcement for home visiting program. Read more.
- July 23, 2010 - HHS awards initial funding for home visiting program. Read more.
- March 30, 2011- Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program: February 2011 SIR Analysis
1 Please note that the funding allotments in this document exclude Wyoming. For approximate funding allotments including Wyoming, please see Appendix B in the Funding Opportunity Announcement