Affordable Care Act - Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Research Network

infant, and early childhood home visiting programs through: (a) research on the components of effective interventions, and (b) research targeted to improving the delivery of home visiting services; this national research agenda will also be used to actively guide the Network's implementation of research studies through both MCHB and external funding sources; o Advance the methods of studying the implementation and effectiveness of home visiting programs; o Develop approaches to data sharing that will expedite the translation of research results into knowledge, products, and procedures; o Disseminate critical information and foster continued education activities on its research findings to inform researchers, professionals, policy makers, other stakeholders in the home visiting field, and the public; o Support the professional development of emerging researchers to conduct research on home visiting through: fostering mentoring relationships between faculty members and emerging researchers; and encouraging active communication, networking, and collaboration among researchers; and Types of relevant activities conducted by the Network may include but are not limited to: o Identifying effective approaches and/or testing the effectiveness of approaches to the implementation of evidence-based home visiting programs within communities; o Identifying gaps in necessary program enhancements and/or testing the efficacy of enhancements to evidence-based home visiting programs, including but not limited to: culturally appropriate adaptations; enhancements to address intimate-partner violence, substance abuse, and parental health and wellbeing; and/or enhancements related to improving the participant outcomes or benchmark domains specified in the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting legislation; o Investigating mechanisms of change within program models or implementation systems in order to identify which program components work under which circumstances for which participants; o Exploring the capacity of existing home visiting models and service systems to meet the unique developmental needs of pregnant and parenting adolescents; o Determining effective program features that can improve participant recruitment/ retention, including father engagement; o Developing approaches to screening children and families for variables highlighted as priority risk areas that can be used in conjunction with home visiting models; o Identifying and evaluating community-based partnerships that enhance a program's responsiveness to community needs; o Evaluating and recommending coordinated approaches that support healthy development by fostering collaborations across diverse agencies that serve mothers and young children, including but not limited to early childhood education settings, health care providers, and local programs; o Conducting cost-benefit analyses of home visiting programs; and o Fostering workforce development, specifically: effective techniques for reflective supervision; effective methods of training and continuing education for home visitors; recruitment and retention of effective home visitors; effective support for home visitor mental health; and other relevant topics. The activities described above may be supported in various ways, including but not limited to: o Convening in-person, video, and teleconference meetings of network members and members of the public; and o Disseminating information through conference presentations, publications, webinars, and websites.