The Power of Home Visiting: Supporting Families for a Stronger Future 

Published Feb 25, 2025

Sommer Rose, M.S. 

What Is Home Visiting and Why Does It Matter? 

Home visiting is a free and voluntary service that pairs caregivers with trained early childhood professionals who provide guidance on a variety of topics including healthy pregnancies, child development and parenting strategies. Home visiting programs partner alongside families prenatally up to the child’s age of 3-5 years old (depending on the program). Research has consistently shown that home visiting positively impacts maternal and child health, child welfare, and early education outcomes. 

At Promise 1000, we are committed to making home visiting accessible to families during the critical first 1,000 days of a child’s life, from prenatal to age 3. Our initiative supports and promotes early childhood home visitation programs as an effective strategy to improve outcomes for children and families that align with our vision of healthy children, healthy families and healthy communities. 

What Does a Home Visitor Do? 

Home visitors offer structured, evidence-based support tailored to each family’s needs. During visits — typically lasting 60-90 minutes — home visitors do the following. 

• provide parenting education using curriculum-based approaches 
• guide families on maternal and child health 
• conduct a variety of screenings (including developmental screenings) to identify support areas 
• promote healthy relationships and safe environments 
• connect families with additional health and community resources 

Visits can be weekly, bimonthly, or monthly, depending on the family’s needs and the program’s model. Some programs also offer virtual visits when necessary. 

How Home Visiting Supports Health Care Providers 

The American Academy of Pediatrics advocates for collaboration between home visiting programs and health care providers. Home visitors can help ensure that children and caregivers receive consistent medical care, assist families in setting health-related goals, and can improve communication between parents and health care professionals. 

To streamline referrals, Promise 1000 developed the Coordinated Referral & Intake System. This electronic system efficiently assigns and manages referrals for home visiting services. Through CRIS, providers and professionals can easily connect families to appropriate programs based on eligibility and availability. This effort has expanded across Missouri through regional collective impact sites including Promise 1000, allowing more families to access these essential services. 

Addressing Maternal Health Challenges With Home Visiting 

Home visiting plays a crucial role in tackling key maternal health issues, including mental health challenges. Research has shown that home visiting improves maternal and child health outcomes in the following ways. 

• reducing emergency department visits and child injuries 
• increasing prenatal care, leading to lower maternal health complications 
• supporting breastfeeding and improving infant birth outcomes 
• reducing substance use and increasing safe practices in the home 
• enhancing family economic self-sufficiency, resilience and reducing stress 

One of our most impactful initiatives, Moving Beyond Depression, provides free evidence-based therapy for mothers experiencing depression. This program offers in-home cognitive behavioral therapy provided by a licensed clinical therapist. Moving Beyond Depression is designed to work alongside home visitation and has been proven to significantly reduce depressive symptoms, reduce parental stress and improve overall family well-being. 

Overcoming Misconceptions About Home Visiting 

Despite its benefits, home visiting is sometimes misunderstood. Some families worry it’s intrusive or only for those in crisis. In reality, home visiting is a voluntary and supportive service designed to empower parents, not judge them. Home visitors come from diverse backgrounds — including early childhood development, human services, social sciences and nursing — and offer expertise tailored to each family’s needs. Home visiting supports families during the postpartum period and beyond. Most programs partner with families until the child is 3-5 years of age. 

Success Stories: The Impact of Home Visiting 

The results of home visiting are clear. Within Promise 1000, studies have shown the following. 

• 93% of children were born at a healthy birth weight. 
• 91% of children were born full-term. 
• Parents had improved safe infant sleep practices. 
• Infant and maternal mortality rates among participating families were exceptionally low (2.9 per 1,000 or <1%). 
• Families were more likely to adhere to the AAP recommendations for well-child visits if the home visitor attended a well-child visit with them at least once. 

Families report feeling more confident in attending medical visits and following through on medical advice. A qualitative study found that home visitors help in the following ways. 

• prepare the family for medical visits and establish health care-related goals in partnership with the family and the health care provider 
• improve communication and understanding between families and health care providers 
• facilitate smoother medical visits 
• provide emotional support, making families feel more empowered 

Learn More and Get Involved 

At Promise 1000, we believe every family deserves access to the support and resources they need to thrive. If you’re a health care provider, consider referring patients through CRIS. If you’re a parent, explore how home visiting can support your journey. 

To learn more about home visiting or to refer a family, check out these resources. 

• What Is Home Visiting? 
• Make a Referral: CRIS Referral Network 
• Promise 1000 Success Stories 
• Home Visiting Models: HomVEE 

About the Author 

Sommer Rose is a Manager for the Promise 1000-Home Visiting Collective, a multimodel collective impact approach to home visiting, and for the Child Adversity Research Program at Children’s Mercy Hospital. She is responsible for Promise 1000’s management, evaluation, quality improvement practices, professional development training for home visitation, database/referral system/data management and analysis. She also provides technical assistance and data consultation to Missouri state partners and four other CI sites across Missouri. Rose has specialized experience in research, evaluation, and program management with a focus on early childhood home visiting and social service programs.