Scaling Virtual Home Visiting: Lessons & Insights

During this September 22, 2020 Emerging Models webinar, Constance Gully, president and CEO of Parents as Teachers National Center (PAT), set the context for the discussion by sharing background on the work of PAT over the past 35 years and its renowned model of home visiting. She shared the urgent response from PAT, leading funders and the entire field when the country was struck by the pandemic and home visiting professionals could no longer conduct their impactful in-person engagements. At the onset of the pandemic, with generous support from the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Rapid Response-Virtual Home Visiting (RR-VHV) collaborative was formed. This group of leading home visiting and parent education organizations worked together to develop and disseminate webinars, toolkits and training materials to support the field in continuing to deliver their important services using today’s technology. 

Gully engaged her colleagues from the RR-VHV, including Safiya Jackson, Early Childhood Systems Director with the North Carolina Partnership for Children, and Roddey Jones, Senior Training Specialist with the National SafeCare Training and Research Center, in a discussion about their experience with the collaborative and the benefits to their organizations and the field. These leaders spoke about the ways in which the pandemic taught the field about what is possible when acting with a sense of urgency, including the alignment and integration of resources for the development of cross-model supports. 

Community commentators, Portia Kennel, Senior Advisor with the Buffett Early Childhood Fund, and Joshua Sparrow, MD, Executive Director of the Brazelton Touchpoints Center, joined the discussion and shared their perspectives about the importance of scaling virtual home visiting to propel children’s healthy development. Critical to this work is the fundamental power of relationships and the co-design and co-creation approach of the RR-VHV collaborative. 

Closing remarks were provided by Malia Ramler, Education Program Officer at the Heising-Simons Foundation, who shared that she and her colleagues saw a major increase in the request for home visits, leading to the Foundation’s investment in helping to launch and sustain the RR-VHV. This collaborative work demonstrates bold, generous leadership and trust built on relationships. 

As the webinar shifted into Q&A with participants, Gully invited observations from Calvin Moore, Ph.D., CEO of the Council for Professional Recognition. Moore shared how impressed he is with the RR-VHV work, enabling the field to respond to the increased interest in virtual home visiting, from early childhood educators — such as Head Start organizations — and from families.