B’More for Healthy Babies Home Visiting (Baltimore City FY17 Annual and Beyond)

FY2021 Jan-Jun:

Home visiting programs enroll women during pregnancy and provide intensive home-based services through the child's third birthday. Home visitors help ensure mothers have a healthy pregnancy and assist families in addressing social, economic, educational, and parenting issues that influence child health and education outcomes. The services are provided using the evidence-based Healthy Families America (HFA) model. This reporting period, 312 families were served, and 2592 home visits were conducted through the three HFA programs in Baltimore City. 

Although we greatly exceeded our annual target for number of home visits conducted (4864/3350), we did not reach our target for number of families served (335/380). The number of families participating in home visiting did not meet the target of 380 for various reasons. First, while the programs have been able to retain most of their existing families despite continued challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, engaging new families while limited to virtual home visiting sessions has been challenging. Programs continue to brainstorm innovative outreach techniques and gain insight on techniques that other programs have successfully implemented during monthly HFA Home Visiting and Babystat meetings. Next, one site discharged a larger number of families who were on creative outreach or no longer eligible to receive services. Finally, staff turnover continues to impact the number of families each site can serve.  

Dru/Mondawmin Healthy Families (DRUM) was unable to report on the new opportunity measures during this reporting period. They have onboarded a Youth Opportunity Specialist who manages this work. Family League will continue to support the specialist with project implementation. 

FY2021: Home visiting programs enroll women during pregnancy and provide intensive home-based services, through the child’s third birthday. Home visitors help ensure mothers have a healthy pregnancy and assist families in addressing social, economic, educational and parenting issues that influence child health and education outcomes. The services are provided using an evidence-based model, Healthy Families America (HFA). 

FY2021: Home visiting programs serve women who are at the highest risk of experiencing a poor birth outcome.  The target population is identified through HealthCare Access Maryland (HCAM), which serves as Baltimore’s central intake system into pregnancy and early childhood services, including evidence-based home visiting. HCAM uses a carefully researched vulnerability index to assess each pregnant woman, identify risk factors, and triage each high-risk woman to the appropriate home visiting model that most effectively meets her needs. 

FY2021 Jan-Jun:

Home visiting sites continue to serve families virtually and have placed a great emphasis on quality improvement to ensure that families are receiving effective supportive services and connection to resources. There has been a high number of depression, substance use, ASQ, and ASQ-SE screenings amongst all sites during this period. Additionally, due to the relationships that staff have with the families that they serve as well as the creative strategies for engagement implemented by the programs, sites have exceeded their target for the number of expected home visits that are completed.  

Despite the pandemic, families continue to see success. Families have found employment, achieved educational goals, purchased homes, and gotten married. 

Family League continues to support DRUM with implementation of the Opportunity Youth project by providing technical assistance regarding data collection and referral process.  

FY2021 Jan-Jun:

#/% of participants not working or in school who report a connection to work/school 

#/% of participants at-risk of disconnection who report maintaining the connection 

DRUM was unable to report on the new opportunity measures during this reporting period. They onboarded a Youth Opportunity Specialist who manages this work who started in April. Family League will continue to support the specialist with project implementation and expects to report on the project in the next reporting period.