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Kaiser Health News, 8/21/17 Home Visits Help New Parents Overcome Tough Histories, Raise Healthy Children
…Home visiting organizations operated under the radar for decades, until the Affordable Care Act created a nationwide program in 2010 to support them. The federal Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting program awards $400 million in annual grants for services to new families with young children or couples who are expecting.
Nationwide, the federal home visiting program provided guidance to 160,000 parents and children in 2016, according to the Health Resources & Services Administration.
Funding for the program is set to expire at the end of September unless Congress acts to reauthorize it. With the deadline looming, advocates and providers are urging federal lawmakers to reauthorize it for five more years at double the current amount. Two bills are pending in the House to continue federal funding of home visits, one of which would eventually double the money earmarked for them.
“Expiration is just not an option,” said Diedra Henry-Spires, chief executive officer of the nonprofit advocacy organization Dalton Daley Group and co-leader of a nationwide coalition of home visiting organizations. “Too many families are relying on these services across the country.”
Organizations that provide home visits worry some programs may have to reduce the number of families they serve and others may have to close altogether if the funding is not renewed in time.
“As we get down to the wire … we become more fearful about it not being reauthorized,” said Andre Eaton, the New York state director of the Parent-Child Home Program. “We only have a certain amount of time to get this done.”
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