Pathways to Resilience: Enhancing Family Well-Being with a Home Visitation Model

Abstract

This paper highlights a study that examined outcome measures of a home visitation program, which provided services to first-born children and their parents living in Southwestern New Mexico. Home visitation workers conducted pre/posttest assessments for prenatal and postpartum periods for 109 families. The Revised North Carolina Family Assessment Scale measured family resilience. Paired sample t test and effect size analyses assessed for intervention effects. OLS regression measured effect of increased home visitation services on family well-being. Significant improvements with moderate to large effect sizes were observed for measures of social support, caregiver characteristics, family interaction, and a reduction in personal problems affecting parenting. These preliminary findings suggest that early intervention home visitation programs is an effective and acceptable method to enhance family well-being. Future directions could involve more comprehensive randomized controlled trials to examine the effectiveness of the group intervention. Practice implications are discussed.