Giving Compass' Take:

• A report from Migration Policy Institute indicates the need to bolster home visiting programs for immigrant and refugee families, who are largely excluded from their benefits.

• What can you do to learn more about home visiting and how it excludes immigrant families? How are you supporting further research on the equity of home visiting?

• Look at another example of the benefits of home visiting, this time in California.

Home visiting programs are increasingly popular in communities across the United States. A two-generation model for health and social service provision, home visiting is designed to support both young children and their caretakers to promote their health, well-being, and long-term outcomes.

For immigrant and refugee families, home visiting can also offer integration-related supports, such as by helping parents navigate unfamiliar early childhood, health, and social service systems. But even though they make up an important segment of the at-risk populations these programs aim to serve, immigrant and refugee families are less frequently enrolled in home visiting programs than families in which the parents are U.S. born.

This brief highlights strategies adopted by some states and counties to address this gap. To do so, it looks at four case studies: King County, Washington; San Diego County, California; Illinois; and Massachusetts. Working with different populations and in varied funding environments, these state and local efforts illustrate key steps policymakers and program administrators can take to boost the equity and quality of home visiting services for immigrant families, such as by:

Read the full report about home visiting programs for immigrant families at Migration Policy Institute.