Effects of COVID-19 on home visiting services for vulnerable families: A cross-state analysis of enrollment, engagement, and attrition patterns.

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joshua P. Mersky ◽  
Lorraine M. McKelvey ◽  
Colleen E. Janczewski ◽  
Shalese Fitzgerald
Author(s):  
Kyung Ja June ◽  
Ji Yun Lee ◽  
Sung-Hyun Cho

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to understand the experiences of mothers of infants who received sustained nurse home visiting services. The program of sustained home visit by nurses (Seoul Maternal Early Childhood Sustained Home-Visiting Program) is an intervention program. Its effectiveness has been verified in Australia, where services are provided to families in a vulnerable families during the period from prenatal period until the newborn is 2 years old.Methods: The study protocol used qualitative approaches. Eleven mothers of infants who received nursing services in December 2015 were invited for an in-depth interview. The data collected were subjected to directed content analysis.Results: The following 4 themes were identified from the analysis: (1) reduction in suspicion and increased feeling of benefit from the visiting service, (2) emotional support to the parents and use of community resources, (3) reliance on friendly nurses, and (4) gaining confidence about parenting and motherhood.Conclusion: Sustained nursing home visiting services can be applied effectively in South Korea. The concrete narrations and descriptions of the experiences of mothers in this study can be used as a base for education, practice, and research.


2000 ◽  
Vol 24 (11) ◽  
pp. 1399-1429 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer A Fraser ◽  
Kenneth L Armstrong ◽  
Jeanette P Morris ◽  
Mark R Dadds

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen Wai Hang Kwok ◽  
Phyllis Chui Ping Pang ◽  
Man Hon Chung ◽  
Cynthia Sau Ting Wu

Background: Risks attributed to chronic diseases, cancer, musculoskeletal discomfort, and infectious diseases among Indonesians were found to be associated with lifestyle behaviors, particularly in rural areas. The aim of this study was to examine the outcomes of a home-visiting lifestyle modification program on improving health risk behaviors among Indonesians living in rural areas.Methods: A total of 160 Indonesians living in rural hamlets in the Yogyakarta Region of Indonesia participated in the program in the period of June 21 to July 21, 2019. In the pre-intervention home interview, learning needs of diet, exercise, hand hygiene, and substance use were identified by using structured assessment tools. In the next home visit, the visitors provided health education and facilitated lifestyle planning based on the related affective and cognitive domains of learning. Subsequent follow-up interviews were conducted 3 weeks after intervention.Results: The results showed that the self-reported intake of vegetables, fruits, meat and salt, cooking with less oil, hand hygiene before eating, number of cigarettes smoked, and symptoms of muscle stiffness significantly improved after the intervention. The lifestyle modification program consisted of the affective and cognitive domains of learning, and could lead to the target behavioral changes in self-reported and observable measures over 1 month.Conclusions: The findings contributed to the framework of community-based health education for health risk reduction and behavioral modification in developing rural communities where health care resources were limited. Further studies with control groups and vigorous objective measures were recommended to elucidate its long-term impacts. The factors leading to its sustainability concerning collaborative care partnerships between community residents and faculty resources are worthy of continued exploration.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebekah Grace ◽  
Kelly Baird ◽  
Emma Elcombe ◽  
Vana Webster ◽  
Jacqueline Barnes ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND Volunteer home visiting is a widely adopted community-based approach to supporting families by linking isolated or vulnerable families with community volunteers. This study seeks to robustly evaluate the effectiveness of this model of support for families with young children. OBJECTIVE This paper reports the intention-to-treat analysis of primary and secondary outcomes for a pragmatic randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the Volunteer Family Connect intervention, a volunteer home visiting program designed to support families with young children who experience social isolation or a lack of parenting confidence and skills. METHODS The RCT was conducted across seven sites in Australia. Overall, 341 families were recruited: 169 intervention (services as usual + volunteer home visiting) and 172 control (services as usual) families. Intervention families received the program for 3-12 months. Participants were invited to complete six data collection points over a 15-month period. Primary outcomes were community connectedness and parenting competence. Secondary outcomes included parent physical and mental health, general parent wellbeing, parent empowerment, the sustainability of family routines, and the parent-child relationship. RESULTS The intervention group demonstrated significant improvement compared to the control group in both of the primary outcomes. They were significantly more like to report improvements in the guidance available to them as measured by the Social Provisions Scale, a key measure of community connectedness and scores on the Parenting Sense of Competence Scale were significantly in favour of the intervention group. Intervention families also reported significantly higher wellbeing, and were significantly more likely to feel that life was improving. A number of positive trends were also evident within the findings. CONCLUSIONS The Volunteer Family Connect intervention was considered to be an effective intervention for improving the community connectedness and parenting competence of families with young children. CLINICALTRIAL Australian New Zealand Clinical Trial Registry (Trial ID: ACTRN12616000396426).


2012 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joanne M. Stubbs ◽  
Helen M. Achat

Sustained health home visiting (SHHV) is a valuable means of implementing early intervention for vulnerable families with infants or young children. This first of a two-part report describes clients and identifies nurses’ activities with or on behalf of clients as part of a pilot SHHV program undertaken within a socioeconomically disadvantaged suburban area of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. A forthcoming report describes the results of the intervention. Child and family health nurses visited vulnerable clients who were pregnant and/or had an infant aged 36 months or younger. Interventions consisted of direct and indirect (i.e. services involving a third party) client contact. Nurses documented all activities undertaken with or on behalf of clients using pre-determined codes. Over 29 months, the program accepted 136 referrals and 118 (87%) consented to the evaluation. Families had a mean of eight risk factors, which commonly included current mental health symptoms or disorders (49%), a history or current experience of domestic violence (51%) and being known to the Department of Community Services (40%). Nurses’ most frequent interventions addressed the main carer’s emotional and health needs, and infant development. Clients’ level of need required coordinated care from a specialised multidisciplinary team, which was unavailable to program clients and their families.


2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 262 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Byrne ◽  
Rebekah Grace ◽  
Jaimie Tredoux ◽  
Lynn Kemp

Objective The aims of the present paper were to: (1) review the research literature that contributes to an understanding of the role of volunteer home visiting programs in supporting the health and well being of families with young children; and (2) propose a conceptual model outlining service pathways for families in need of additional support. Methods An integrative literature review method was used, with a mix of electronic and manual search methods for the period January 1980–January 2014. Forty-five studies were identified that met the inclusion criteria for review and were coded according to themes developed a priori. Results There is little formal research that has examined the effectiveness of volunteer home visiting programs for supporting family health and well being. The available research suggests that volunteer home visiting programs provide socioemotional support through structured social relationships; however, there is limited empirical evidence to explicate the factors that contribute to these outcomes. Conclusion In recognition of the importance of peer support for new parents, the not-for-profit sector has been involved in providing volunteer home visiting services to families for decades. However, the body of research to support this work is characterised by methodological limitations, and rigorous evidence is limited. What is clear anecdotally and qualitatively from the existing research is that parents who are in need of additional support value engagement with a community volunteer. These structured social relationships appear to fulfil a service need within the community, helping build bridges to support social networks, and thus complementing professional services and relationships. Overall, structured social relationships in the form of volunteer home visiting programs appear to provide an important pathway to support family health and well being. Findings from the existing research are mixed and often characterised by methodological limitations, pointing to a need for further rigorous research. What is known about the topic? Volunteer family support programs have been an important part of the service landscape for vulnerable families, both nationally and internationally, for many years. Anecdotal reports suggest that this is a valued form of support that increases a sense of community connectedness and breaks down barriers for families in accessing other community support services. What does this paper add? This paper proposes a model identifying broad service pathways impacting on family health and well being that takes into account the importance of structured social relationships and social connectedness. What are the implications for practitioners? The proposed model may encourage discussion by practitioners and organisations interested in models of support for families who are socially isolated and/or in need of assistance to access and engage with services within the community.


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