Investment in home visits expands services
Tennessee’s decision to spend an additional $56 million over four years to expand evidence-based home visiting (EBHV) programs is a wise investment of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds.
It’s a wise investment because the overwhelming body of research demonstrates that home visiting programs work.
Parents are the first teachers in the life of any child, but not all parents are prepared to nurture their child during pregnancy and in the crucial early years of the child’s development.
Home visiting is a voluntary program that works by deploying professionals to visit at-risk, financially distressed families in their homes to coach parents in their child’s healthy development as well as offer connections to other community resources for health, education and development needs.
Quality home visiting programs yield a healthy return
As part of Tennessee’s child wellness platform for three decades, home visiting has a number of different evidence-based models – Nurse Family Partnership, Parents as Teachers and Healthy Families America – proven to have a positive impact for families and their children.
Detailed evaluation of high-quality programs show improvement in birth outcomes, child health, reduced neglect and abuse, and better kindergarten readiness.
For families that choose to participate, the experience is often transformational.
Now, as for the costs, national costbenefit analyses tell us that high quality home visiting programs result in a return on investment (ROI) of up to $5.70 for every $1 spent, principally due to the reduced costs of child protective services, special education, grade retention and criminal justice expenses.
Here at home Tennessee’s programs score even higher. Research demonstrates that the two Nurse Family Partnership programs serving Tennesseans – at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis and at East Tennessee State University -- generate a remarkable $6.10 ROI for every $1 spent.
Too few eligible people receive home visiting services now
As fiscal conservatives and budget hawks in the Tennessee General Assembly we’re impressed by home visiting’s strong ROI.
As members of the finance and health committees we took steps in recent years to increase funding and improve access.
Yet despite those increases, these impressive efforts have been reaching too few eligible Tennesseans – just 5% of our state Medicaid population has had access to home visiting, and it’s been available in only 50 of our 95 counties.
With this new infusion of TANF funds, Tennessee can begin expanding this valuable service to a greater population of mothers and babies at risk.
Especially given the current context of the coronavirus pandemic, that’s good news, because Tennessee’s home visiting providers have fashioned an innovative path to overcome the necessary social distancing restrictions.
Home visiting professionals have employed telehealth approaches as necessary to ensure their important work continues – connecting families and providers through phone calls and virtual visits to replace their normal one-hour in-person visits.
We will work with our colleagues in the General Assembly and Governor Lee to continue to invest and improve access to voluntary evidence-based home visiting programs across the state of Tennessee because they’re cost effective and they work.
Sen. Bo Watson, R-hixson, and Rep. Ryan Williams, R-cookeville, serve in the Tennessee General Assembly.