PUEBLO, Colo. — Standing in her living room, Isabel Valencia prepared an impromptu tennis serve using materials she had on hand: a green balloon for a ball and a ruler glued to a paper plate for a racket.
She shoots balloons at Myra Ocampo, who comes to visit her at home, and the two of them pass the balloons back and forth, counting the number of balloons that come back, encouraging each other and laughing at each other’s mistakes.
The moment is light-hearted and playful, as it will likely be when Valencia attempts the same activity later this week with her 4-year-old daughter, Celeste, but Ocampo is careful to explain what’s going on beneath the surface: They’re not just playing tennis. They’re socializing. They’re working on their hand-eye coordination. And they’re practicing math.
Valencia, who immigrated to the United States from Colombia several years ago, found Ocampo through a free home-visiting program that helps families struggling with their children’s early learning and development.
This model, and others like it, have been a lifeline for families, especially those whose access to quality early education is poor or out of reach. These programs, which are set to expand with new federal funding, have proven to help children prepare for school, but they still reach relatively few families.
In 2022, while out at a grocery store with her two young children, someone told Valencia about the home visiting program. She had moved to Pueblo, Colorado, just a few months earlier and felt lonely. She had never met anyone who spoke Spanish.
“I thought I was the only one because I hadn’t left the house,” she said through a translator.
Home education program for parents of preschool children, commonly known as hippieprovides families with a trained support person (in Valencia’s case, Ocampo) who visits their homes weekly to teach them how to engage their children in fun, high-quality, developmentally appropriate activities.
The HIPPY program is unique in its two-generational approach: Through regular home visits and monthly group meetings, parents learn how to promote early literacy and social-emotional skills from staff who have experienced the program and who often speak the same languages and backgrounds as the families they support.
The programs are primarily in low-income neighborhoods but also through school districts and organizations that serve immigrant and refugee families, said Miriam Westheimer, chief programs officer for HIPPY International, which operates in 15 countries and 20 U.S. states.
Many others Home visiting model existsEach has its own characteristics: some employ registered nurses as home visitors and focus on maternal and child health, others provide social workers and early childhood specialists, some can start early in pregnancy, and some, like HIPPY, serve families with toddlers and preschoolers.
In the United States, 2 dozen The home visiting model received approval from the federal Maternal and Child Health Visiting (MIECHV) program and therefore funding.
Dr. Michael Warren, deputy director of the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Bureau of Maternal and Child Health, which oversees the MIECHV program, has seen firsthand how home visiting can strengthen families, but said its scope is currently too limited.
Estimation 17 million Families across the country stand to benefit from voluntary, evidence-based home visiting services like the one Valencia receives, but only around 270,000 actually benefited in 2022.
“It’s purely a matter of resources,” Warren noted. “If we had more resources, we could serve more families.”
Luckily, he says, reinforcements are on the way.
Federal investment in the MIECHV program is expected to double from $400 million to $800 million per year by 2027. this yearThe federal government would match $3 for every $1 of non-federal funds spent on home visiting programs up to a certain amount, an amount that is expected to be easy to achieve because many states already have funding mechanisms in place that combine public, non-profit and private contributions.
Interviews with more than 20 individuals who conduct, receive, or investigate home visits, and observations of two home visits in Colorado and Texas, reveal the extent to which this service impacts families and communities.
Now in her second year of participating in the HIPPY program, Valencia is a more confident parent, and she says the structured curriculum she follows and Ocampo’s support have helped prepare her daughter to thrive in kindergarten.
