Call 311 to enroll

Home visiting is a voluntary program that pairs pregnant and newly parenting women with a nurse or trained professional who makes regular visits in the participant’s home to provide guidance, coaching and access to prenatal care and other health and social services. Home visiting is preventive intervention focused on promoting positive parenting and child development, with the ultimate goal of strengthening families and communities.

Home visiting services are offered in the family’s home where teachable moments naturally arise. Working one-on-one with a home visiting professional, families can ask questions, discuss concerns, and gain valuable information.

Home visitors build relationships as they provide services tailored to each family’s needs, such as:

• Teaching parenting skills and modeling parenting techniques.
• Providing information and guidance on a range of topics, such as safe sleep position, injury prevention and nutrition.
• Providing referrals to address substance use disorder, family violence and maternal depression.
• Screening children for developmental delays and facilitating intervention.
• Promoting early learning in the home that emphasizes positive parenting and building a language-rich environment.

CHVP local health jurisdictions serve clients using three home visiting models. All three models are strengths-based and focus on a participant’s individual interests.

• Healthy Families America
  • Serves low-income families who must be enrolled within the first three months after an infant‘s birth.
  • A trained paraprofessional provides one-on-one home visits to parents and their babies primarily through three years postpartum.
• Nurse-Family Partnership
  • Serves low-income, first-time moms who must be enrolled by the 28th week of pregnancy.
  • A Public Health Nurse provides one-on-one home visits to parents and their babies through two years postpartum.
• Parents as Teachers
  • Serves families with children (between pregnancy and Kindergarten entry) experiencing one or more stressors in their lives.
  • A Parent Educator conducts personal visits with parents and their children, as well as monthly group events.

CalWORKs Home Visiting Program (CWHVP)

The CalWORKs Home Visiting Program is an evidence-based, voluntary program for pregnant and new parents, including caregivers. The program aims to support positive health development and well-being outcomes for families and children born into poverty. Home visitors meet with participants regularly one-on-one. There are many benefits to regular home visits, including building strong relationships and ongoing guidance, education, and access to health and social services. Often, these services help to improve the family's health, education, social, economic, and financial future.

To be eligible for CWHVP services, you must be pregnant or parenting or the caregiver to a child three months or younger. In addition, you must be a member of a CalWORKs assistance unit or think you might be eligible for CalWORKs aid. Please get in touch with the Madera County Department of Public Health for more information.

For more information, please contact gabriela.fernandez@maderacounty.com or sophia.aguilar@maderacounty.com

Madera County achieved accreditation status in 2012 to implement Healthy Families America (HFA). HFA is one of the leading family support and evidenced-based home visiting programs in the United States.

Healthy Families America (HFA) works with pregnant and parenting families of children prenatally up to age 3. The model is grounded in an infant mental health framework and aims to cultivate and strengthen nurturing parent-child relationships, promote healthy childhood growth and development, and enhance family functioning by reducing risk and building protective factors.

What is the model’s approach to providing home visiting services?

All families receive an initial assessment of risks, resilience, and opportunities for growth, which is used to tailor services to meet their specific needs. All families are offered weekly home visits at the start of services. Family progress criteria are then used to determine a family’s readiness to move to less frequent visits—from weekly to every other week, then monthly, and finally, quarterly.

Madera County Department of Public Health is funded by the California Home Visiting Program and CalWORKs Home Visiting Program to implement Healthy Families America for Madera County families.

•  Call 1-559-675-7893 or 1-800-427-6897 to enroll.
• Home Visitation Program Flyer (English & Spanish)