Home Visiting

COVID-19 Home Visiting Guidance

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) Home Visiting Program contracts with local agencies to provide voluntary evidence-based early childhood home visiting services, ensuring children have the opportunity to grow up healthy, safe, ready to learn, and able to become productive Missouri citizens. These services are supported by the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Grant and the Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant (Title V) and implemented through four evidence-based national home visiting models: Early Head Start Home Based Option; Healthy Families America; Nurse Family Partnership; and Parents as Teachers.

Home Visiting services are provided free of charge to voluntarily enrolled families that include pregnant women and/or primary caregivers and their child(ren) from birth to entry of kindergarten, depending on the home visiting model being implemented. Families are individually assessed for all areas of need, assisted in obtaining services to address these needs, and provided home visiting services over the long term which support, educate, and enhance their parenting skills and parent/child relationships.

The goals of the DHSS Home Visiting Programs are to: improve maternal and newborn health; reduce child injuries, child abuse, neglect or maltreatment and reduce emergency room visits; improve school readiness and achievement; reduce domestic violence; improve economic self-sufficiency; and improve coordination and referrals to other community resources and support for families.

The DHSS Home Visiting Program's contracted local implementing home visiting agencies provide services in the following Missouri counties: Bollinger, Boone, Butler, Cape Girardeau, Cass, Clay, Dunklin, Greene, Jackson, Johnson, Lafayette, Maries, Mississippi, New Madrid, Pemiscot, Perry, Phelps, Platte, Randolph, Ray, Ripley, Scott, Ste. Genevieve, Stoddard, St. Louis County, and St. Louis City.

For more information on the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services Home Visiting Program please contact the Home Visiting Unit at 573-751-6266 or HomeVisiting@health.mo.gov.