Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA America) announced in late May that the Healthy Families America (HFA) affiliate Healthy Families Southeast Minnesota, administered by Rice and Freeborn County Public Health departments, has been accredited as a provider of high-quality home visiting services to families with infants and young children.
Healthy Families Southeast Minnesota supports families in Rice and Freeborn counties, from pregnancy through a child’s third birthday. Services are typically provided in the home and home visitors receive extensive training on a wide range of topics important to new parents, including caring for a new baby and promoting healthy child development.
In Rice County, this evidenced-based family home visiting program is offered in addition to a second evidenced based family home visiting program – Maternal Early Childhood Sustained Home Visiting (MESCH), as well as traditional family home visiting options. Staff trained in these programs include public health nurses and a bilingual community health worker.
In addition to promoting nurturing, responsive parent-child relationships, home visitors regularly connect families to community resources such as WIC, health care, early childhood services, and food assistance.
They additionally assist parents in developing strategies to cope with the stress and adversities that can negatively impact families, such as substance use disorders, mental health challenges, and financial instability. Visits are voluntary and start out weekly, becoming less frequent over time as families gain confidence in their parenting skills and meet goals they’ve set for themselves.
“HFA sites utilize evidence-based best practices to provide individualized support to families when needed most, and linkages to community services,” said Melissa Merrick, President and CEO of PCA America. “We congratulate Healthy Families Southeast Minnesota and we commend the staff for their leadership and commitment that has contributed to this most notable and highly regarded achievement.”
The accreditation process is based upon a stringent set of approximately 150 standards grounded in more than 30 years of research. The process involves an in-depth examination of the site’s operations, as well as an assessment of the quality of the visits made by home visitors. An extensive written self-study was followed by a three-day site visit from national HFA staff, during which interviews were conducted with staff, current and former families, and members of the site’s advisory group.
“Healthy Families Southeast Minnesota is delighted to have finalized its accreditation with HFA,” said Krista Middlebrooks, Regional Program Manager, housed at Rice County Public Health. “This has been a rigorous 18-month process, during which we evaluated and improved our site policies and practices to meet HFA standards at a high level. We are incredibly proud of our staff, whose passion for providing responsive, strength-based service to families will have positive impacts for years to come. Supporting parents in the early years of a child’s life continues to be a wise investment of time and resources.”
Since 2018, Healthy Families Southeast Minnesota has enrolled more than 320 families and conducted over 13,000 home visits.
PCA America, a highly respected national not-for-profit committed to preventing child abuse in all forms through education, research, and public awareness, implemented the Healthy Families America (HFA) initiative in 1992. For more than 30 years, HFA has served as PCA America’s signature program to support families of all socio-economic backgrounds across approximately 600 communities in 38 states, D.C., the U.S. territories and Israel.
