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Maternal Infant & Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV)

Background of MIECHV

Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) provides an unprecedented opportunity for collaboration and partnership at the Federal, State, and community levels to improve health and development outcomes for at-risk children through evidence-based home visiting programs

PURPOSE

Support the delivery of coordinated and comprehensive high-quality voluntary early childhood home visiting services to eligible families.

GOALS

  1. Strengthen and improve the program and activities carried out under Title V of the Social Security Act
  2. Improve coordination of services for at-risk communities
  3. Identify and provide comprehensive services to improve outcomes for eligible families who reside in at-risk communities.

Indiana MIECHV

Indiana has an outstanding history of implementing a comprehensive, high-quality early childhood system characterized by multiple collaborative efforts and leaders committed to the health and well-being of mothers and children. Both MIECHV co-lead agencies, the Indiana Department of Health (IDOH) and Department of Child Services (DCS) serve as co-lead partnering agencies on the MIECHV project. IDOH and DCS have long-standing histories of addressing needs of women and children through home visiting, as well as other programs and initiatives that contribute to a comprehensive, high quality early childhood system throughout the state.

Indiana’s MIECHV vision is to improve health and development outcomes for children and families who are at risk through achievement of the following goals:

  • Provide appropriate home visiting services to women, their infants and families who are low-income and high risk;
  • Develop a system of coordinated services statewide of existing and newly developed home visiting programs in order to provide appropriate, targeted, and unduplicated services and referrals to all children, mothers, and families who are high-risk throughout Indiana;
  • Coordinate necessary services outside of home visiting programs to address needs of participants, which may include: mental health, primary care, dental health, children with special needs, substance use, childhood injury prevention, child abuse/neglect/maltreatment, school readiness, employment training, and adult education programs.

These goals are measured in six Federal benchmark areas:

  • Improved maternal and newborn health;
  • Reduction in child injuries, abuse, neglect, or maltreatment and reduction of emergency department visits;
  • Improvements in school readiness and achievement;
  • Crime or domestic violence;
  • Family economic self-sufficiency;
  • Coordination and referrals for other community resources.

Indiana MIECHV Implementation

MIECHV-funded families in Indiana receive home visiting services from either Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) or Healthy Families Indiana (HFI) implementations in 6 Indiana counties:

HFI is a voluntary evidence-based home visitation program that is designed to promote healthy families and healthy children through a variety of services including child development, access to health care, and parent education. HFI has been in partnership with Healthy Families America (HFA), the national home visitation model, since 1994. MIECHV-funded HFI services are available in the following counties: Elkhart, Lake, LaPorte, Marion, St. Joseph, and Scott

NFP is an evidence-based, community health program with over 40 years of evidence showing significant improvements in the health and lives of first-time moms and their children living in poverty. NFP pairs a first-time mom with a specially trained nurse who regularly conducts home visits starting early in pregnancy, continuing through the child’s second birthday. To qualify for the program, a woman must be fewer than 28 weeks pregnant with her first child, be Medicaid eligible, and live in a county where services are currently offered. MIECHV-funded NFP services are available in the following counties: LaPorte, St. Joseph, Elkhart, and Marion.

MIECHV Map

Additionally, Indiana supports the following activities through MIECHV:

  • Infrastructure support and technical assistance of HFI mental health consultation enhancement
  • Continuous Quality Improvement
  • Indiana Home Visiting Advisory Board

Indiana MIECHV Outcomes

As of September 30, 2020, Indiana has served 10,915 families through 260,733 home visits with MIECHV funding since its inception.

During the 2019-2020 reporting period (October 1, 2019 –September 30, 2020) 2075 families within the identified target population received MIECHV services. 

  • Among mothers who enrolled in home visiting prenatally before 37 weeks, 12.4% of infants were born preterm. This is an improvement from FY18 and FY19 performance reporting;
  • 91% of primary caregivers were screened for depression within 3 months of enrollment or within 3 months of delivery (for those enrolled prenatally);
  • 42.8% of mothers enrolled in home visiting prenatally or within 30 days after delivery received postpartum visit with healthcare provider within 8 weeks of delivery;
  • 61.9% of infants were always placed to sleep on their backs, without bed-sharing or soft bedding;
  • 89.03% of children had a family member that read, told stories, and/or sang songs daily during a typical week;
  • Caregivers were asked if they had any concerns regarding their child’s development, behavior, or learning on 97.79% of the home visits;
  • 89.86% of children enrolled with positive screens for developmental delays received services in a timely manner.

Documents

Please click on the following links to view the following documents pertaining to the MIECHV grant:

Needs Assessments:

Final Reports:

Current Project Summaries:

CQI:

Questions

For more information about MIECHV in Indiana or for general questions, please contact idohmch@health.in.gov or please click the following links: