The Connecticut’s Children’s Trust Fund has developed its effective home visiting program to assist vulnerable new parents. The program’s purpose is to identify at-risk parents and provide effective services in order to reduce child abuse and neglect. The article, published in a recent edition of Child Abuse & Neglect The International Journal, describes the strategy and history of a universal home visiting program that relied on strong legislative support. The Trust Fund’s authorization, now codified at CGS § 17b-751b, resulted in the establishment of the Nurturing Families Network. The home visiting program sites grew from two to 42 over a decade, and are now in place at all 29 of the state’s birthing hospitals with expanded programs in Hartford and New Haven.
Read about the program details, its data collection and evaluation components, and the Continuous Quality Improvement Team that meets to address implementation problems and quality assurance issues. Program results show that participants have low rates of substantiated abuse and neglect. The research for and evaluation of the program help the Trust Fund to promote best practices, set standards, and measure outcomes at each of the program sites. Its goal is to expand its efforts to reach at-risk families with this effective model, as fiscal resources permit.
