PACS’ Home Visitation Program has three components
#1 Select Home Visitation Program (SHV), funded by First 5LA.
PACS started its Select Home Visitation (SHV) Program in January2014 to serve families who live in the Long Beach and Wilmington Best Start neighborhoods. Referrals come from the Welcome Baby Hospital sites. Its purpose is to serve at-risk families with newborn babies in these neighborhoods. At-risk families include teen parents, premature birth, unstable home life, homelessness, drug or alcohol use during pregnancy, financial challenges, mental health issues, domestic violence, more than one child under 5 years of age, past trauma, food insecurity and language barriers.
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES:
- Support parents and promote a healthy parent-child relationship.
- Assist families with building and sustaining community partnerships that will cultivate and strengthen the nurturing parent-child relationship(s) and
- Promote healthy childhood growth and development while enhancing family functioning by reducing risk and building protective factors.
- Help families build on their strengths so that children are well-supported.
- Prepare the family’s home for each developmental stage of their child.
- Reduce child abuse and prepare every child to be school-ready.
CRITERIA & REFERRAL PROCESS:
- Mother/caregiver must live in specific zip codes of the Best Start neighborhoods.
- Give birth at a Welcome Baby Hospital.
- Identified as high-risk and screened at bedside by Wellness Baby staff or screened by BRIDGES staff and offered this service.
- Must be referred to PACS by the Wellness Baby or BRIDGES staff.
- Mother/caregiver can self-refer but must request services thru Welcome Baby program
- Once the referral is assigned to PACS, within 48 hours a Select Home Visitor is assigned to contact the biological mother, inform her of SHV services and schedule the first home visit to start the process.
- Home visitors will meet with the family at least one time per week, for approximately 1 hour, for the first 6 months of the program.
“You helped me so much when I needed it the most…being pregnant and depressed was something I never imagined I’d find myself feeling…Your visits got me through! Thank you for understanding me and knowing that I wasn’t losing my mind … I learned how to be strong and take care of myself… And thanks to you… I feel better again and have my life back.”—CB
SERVICES:
- Use the Healthy Families America Model (HFA) to promote healthy bonding and attachment
- Educate about infant brain development
- Assess early for development delays
- Personal, one-to-one information and support to parents.
- Weekly home visits for at least the first six months after the child’s birth. After the first six months, visits may occur less frequently depending on the family’s progress and challenges.
- Services can be offered up until the child’s 5th birthday. The family may disenroll at any time.
- Support mother to strengthen their parenting skills
- Link families to community services and make referrals
- Make referrals for mental health services if needed
- The services are available in English and Spanish.
- Other services include infant massage demonstrations, family goal planning, referrals for other services such as benefits enrollment, and supplies free of charge such as diapers, clothing, safety seats, baby wipes, baby food, bedding, etc.
Vision: To promote maternal health and well-being, improve infant and child health and development, strengthen family functioning, and cultivate strong communities.
CRITERIA AND REFERRALS:
Both programs accept at-risk families prenatally and postnatally up to the age of 3 months for enrollment. Families are pre-screened to meet high risk requirements.
Referrals come from the Dept. of Public, medical providers, Dept. of Mental Health contracted clinics, community members, self-referral, Welcome Baby programs, Nurse Family Partnership, and through outreach by the PACS HVE staff.
- Reduce child abuse and maltreatment;
- Teach positive parenting skills and parent-child interactions;
- Promote child school readiness;
- Increase early learning in the home, with an emphasis on strong communication between parents and children that stimulate early language development;
- Conduct screenings and provide referrals to address postpartum depression, substance abuse, family violence, legal issues, and homelessness through case management support;
- Screen infants for developmental delays as early as 2 month (Ages & Stages/ASQ3/ASQSE2); facilitate early prevention for autism and other developmental disabilities;
- Supportive developmental materials are provided and referrals are made as needed;
- Increase access to primary care medical services;
- support timely well-child visits, as well as
- postpartum visits with a healthcare provider for mothers/caregivers
- increase child immunization rates;
- Education provided on breastfeeding, safe sleep practices, injury prevention, and family nutrition.
- HVPE supervisor receives the referral and assigns a home visitor to assess the needs of the family.
- Home visitor makes contact with the family to schedule initial Home Visit within 7 days.
- Home visitor will schedule a visit for the following week to start the intake process. The Parent Survey Assessment screen (psycho-social) is administered. The family needs to score 25 or above to be offered services.
- If the mother/caregiver doesn’t score 25, the home visitor is trained to ask follow-up questions.
- Once enrolled, the home visitor can meet with the family once a week for approximately one hour. These are voluntary and the client can disenroll at any time.
- The services are available in English and Spanish.
- Other services include infant massage demonstrations, family goal planning, referrals for other services such as benefits enrollment, and supplies free of charge such as diapers, clothing, safety seats, baby wipes, baby food, bedding, etc.
Provides PACS clients, and especially the families
In the Home Visitors Program with vital items.
Baby2Baby provides children living in poverty, ages 0-12 years, with diapers, clothing and all the basic necessities that every child deserves. In the last 9 years, Baby2Baby has distributed over 100 million items to children in homeless shelters, domestic violence programs, foster care, hospitals, and underserved schools as well as children who have lost everything in the wake of disaster. They have a list of non-profit organizations and PACS is fortunate to be one of them.
In 2019, Baby To Baby partnered with the Los Angeles Clippers and Kawhi Leonard to pledge one million backpacks to the children of L.A. For many of these children who are homeless or in foster care, backpacks not only hold their schoolbooks and homework, but also all their personal belongings instead of a trash bag. This donation gave children the pride they deserve and the confidence they need to start the school year off.