Home Visitation Programs

On April 21, 1993, Deborah Daro, Director of the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse, testified before Congress describing Healthy Families America as an “initiative that we hope will bring universal home visitation services to all new parents eventually, but in the short run at least to those parents that are in the most difficult circumstances.” That came closer to becoming a reality on March 23, 2010, when the President signed into law P.L. 111-148, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. On June 1, 2011, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced the availability of up to $99 million in competitive funding under the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, a provision that was buried deeply in the Affordable Care Act.