Publication: Home Visiting: Recent Program Evaluations

• Behrman, Richard E.

This issue of The Future of Children is different therefore
than our typical issue; rather than being a broad
literature review, each article is a report on a single
program, evaluated in two or more sites, and contains more
technical data than is typically reported in our journal
articles. We have taken this approach because we believe
the results of these evaluations are important and that
combining them in a single, detailed volume will be helpful
to policymakers, practitioners, and researchers.

The results summarized in this journal issue illustrate the
difficulty of changing lives of children and parents who
live in conditions of disadvantage. Results varied widely
across program models, program sites, and families, and
across the domains of human experience the programs are
designed to address. For example, several home visiting
models produced some benefits in parenting or in the
prevention of child abuse and neglect on at least some
measures. No model produced large or consistent benefits in
child development or in the rates of health-related
behaviors such as immunizations or well-baby check-ups.
Only two program models included in this journal issue
explicitly sought to alter mothers' lives, and, of those,
one produced significant effects at more than one site,
when assessed with rigorous studies. All programs struggled
to implement services as intended by their program models
and, especially, to engage families in the programs. For
instance, families typically received only about half the
number of home visits that they were scheduled to receive,
and many families received only 20 to 40 hours of services
over the course of several years.

We recommend that practitioners and policymakers embrace
modest expectations for these programs; no single service
strategy can accomplish all the goals that these programs
have been mounted to address (promote good parenting,
prevent child abuse and neglect, promote children's health
and development, and change the course of mothers' lives).
We believe that home visiting programs are best funded as
one of a range of services offered to families with young
children. We urge that existing home visiting programs, in
partnership with researchers, focus on improving the
quality and implementation of their services.