Study Assesses Benefits to Families of Home Visits

The Future of Children: Home Visiting: Recent Program Evaluation, edited by Richard E. Behrman, is the latest issue of a journal published twice a year by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation’s Center for the Future of Children. For this issue, the center asked 25 authors to analyze six programs that promote good child-rearing skills and health habits by sending people to the homes of pregnant women or families with youngsters. Some 550,000 children are served by such programs, states the report. But the evaluators found much that could be improved. Most programs struggle to provide services, the authors assert, and also fail to engage families: From 20 to 67 per cent of families participating in home-visitation programs drop out. In addition, none of the programs that were evaluated consistently produced increases in the number of immunizations or baby check-ups, although some programs show promise in stopping child abuse. The report recommends improving communications between local programs and their national headquarters, and augmenting what the authors deem inadequate research on the types of families who would benefit most from home visits. Publisher: The Packard Foundation, 300 Second Street, Suite 200, Los Altos, Cal. 94022; (650) 948-7658; fax (650) 948-6498; http://www.futureofchildren.org; 223 pages; free; I.S.S.N. 1054-8289.