Healthy Families Indiana is a voluntary home visitation program designed to promote healthy families and healthy children through a variety of services, including child development, access to health care and parent education.
By working closely with hospital maternity wards, prenatal clinics and other local agencies, Healthy Families Indiana systematically identifies families that could benefit from education and support services either before or immediately after birth. The program is designed to strengthen families by reducing child abuse and neglect, childhood health problems and juvenile delinquency.
In partnership with Healthy Families America, the national home visitation model, Healthy Families Indiana was launched in 1994. The underlying assumptions of this public/private partnership are:
- Parents are responsible for their children
- Families have strengths which need to be recognized
- When services are delivered, families should be actively involved in decisions which affect their lives
- Service systems should be available to intervene early be preventive in nature to avoid family crisis
- Successful Healthy Families Programs are locally driven, collaborative in nature and build upon and strengthen existing and new partnerships
- Program accountability is linked to results and continuous improvement From the Healthy Families Indiana Strategic Plan January, 1996
Goals: The goals of Healthy Families Indiana are to:
- Systematically identify overburdened families
- Promote healthy family functioning by teaching problem solving skills
- Reduce family stress
- Improve family support systems
- Promote positive parent/child interaction
- Promote healthy childhood development