2018-00487 - Grant from Minnesota Department of Health for home visiting services

The Minneapolis Health Department (MHD) works with Hennepin Healthcare (HH), MVNA, Family Health (MVNA) to provide long-term evidence-based home visiting. Some families choose not to engage in long-term home visiting for many reasons, including being referred too late for enrollment, not meeting eligibility criteria, or being disinterested in the long-term home visiting time commitment. MHD has selected MVNA to reach new mothers in the hospital after childbirth to enroll them early in Family Connects, a short-term alternative home visiting model to expand access and improve the health of two generations at a time. Family Connects addresses child abuse and neglect by supporting all families, regardless of socioeconomic status, through connection with community resources, improving access and utilization of high quality child care services, promoting positive parenting behaviors, and bonding. Activities enhance home environments to support safety and learning, decrease maternal anxiety, and reduce the need for infant emergency care. We will intentionally target women residing in the city of Minneapolis who deliver their baby at HH, HCMC, as the birth population mirrors who we are trying to reach – high poverty (75% HCMC birth families live at or below 200% Federal Poverty Level), women at risk for poor birth outcomes, such as, low birth weight (9.5% at HCMC), premature delivery (10.4% at HCMC), teens, homeless, and underserved racial/ethnic communities. The goal is to improve the health and wellbeing of over 700 children and their families through early access to postpartum and well-child care, teaching positive parenting techniques, lowering maternal anxiety and depression, reducing emergency medical care for infants, lowering rates of child protection investigations for abuse and neglect, and linking families to community resources. The home visiting model utilizes a high interference approach, called the Family Support Matrix, to assess family risk and needs in the four domains of health care, safe home, infant care, and parent support, and connect all families to needed community resources.