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Healthy Families Broward (HFB) is a voluntary home visitation program designed to prevent child abuse and neglect by promoting positive parenting practices and knowledge of child development, health, and safety through modeling of appropriate parent-child interaction, sharing parent-child activities, use of curricula, and regular screening of target children. Potential participants are assessed for risk factors impacting healthy child development and associated with child abuse and neglect, such as low income, higher rate of child protective services involvement, low educational attainment, limited support system, and lack of self-sufficiency. The program serves families identified as being “at-risk”, with children 0-5 years of age. A participant may enter the program during the pregnancy stage or within 90 days of the child’s birth. A well-trained paraprofessional Family Support Engagement Specialist visits at least once per week for the first six months and then on a diminishing schedule as the family progresses toward meeting goals. The role of the home visitor is to build a social connection with parents to reduce isolation and increase parents’ positive connection to their child and the community.
Healthy Families Broward currently screens and assesses for risk factors associated with child abuse and neglect and other poor childhood outcomes on all new mothers who reside within the focus zip codes (33311, 33020, 33023, 33004, 33060, 33069, 33009, 33024, and 33313). The program serves a caseload of 320 families at any given time.
To be eligible for HFB services, at the time of assessment, the individuals must meet the following criteria:
• Have a positive Florida Universal Prenatal Screen, Infant Screen, or HFF Record Referral Screen; or be referred by a specific partner agency. Referrals received from CI&R that do not have a positive score for HFB but were sent with an override and a written justification for enrollment could also be eligible at the site’s discretion.
• Reside in the target area.
• Be pregnant or have an infant less than three months of age.
• Participants may be enrolled even if the focus child has been removed from the home because of a child protective services investigation or case, as long as there is a plan for reunification