MIHOPE Study Underway in 9 States

Mother and Infant Home Visiting Program

Evaluation (MIHOPE)

Informing the Future of Home Visiting

 

MIHOPE Study Underway in 9 States 

MIHOPE is in the final stages of engaging 12 states in the study, with 9 states enrolling families already. Throughout 2012 and 2013, the MIHOPE study team partnered with states operating Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV)-funded Early Head Start (EHS), Healthy Families America (HFA), Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), and Parents as Teachers (PAT) services to enroll local programs into the study. During the site selection process the study team works closely with state administrators and local program staff to understand whether the site meets the study’s criteria, and to work out all the operational details that will help the study fit well into the local site’s day-to-day operations. State and local staff members have been great partners throughout this process.

To be eligible for MIHOPE, a state needs to have local MIECHV programs that: (1) serve women who are 15 years old or older and who are pregnant or have a child who is six months old or younger; (2) operate one of the aforementioned home visiting models; and (3) have been operating continuously for two years or more at the time study activities begin in that state. The study team is pleased to have states in the study with a mix of home visiting program models and urban or rural program locations. These factors are important to ensure that the study fully reflects the diversity of MIECHV programs and families.

Another part of the selection process was to identify local programs within the state and to understand their operations. The local programs ultimately selected to participate in MIHOPE have more eligible families in their communities than program slots to serve them. The MIHOPE team has worked with potential sites to understand referral sources, organizational capacity, and community need. The research team and site staff worked successfully together to determine whether sites would each be able to recruit at least 60 new families within a 12- to 18-month time period.

The following states and number of local programs are participating in MIHOPE as of October 1, 2013. As site selection is finalized and study enrollment continues, MIHOPE team members have regular meetings with the sites to work with them on sample recruitment and data collection activities. The MIHOPE team is also responsible for working with the states to get access to administrative data records (i.e., vital records, child welfare records, and Medicaid records).

The MIHOPE team is grateful to state administrators and local program staff for their study participation. MIHOPE would not be moving along so successfully without the on-going support of local programs, states, federal agencies, and model developers.