Enhancing Maternal and Child Health in Rhode Island by Connecting Families to Home Visiting Services

The Challenge

In 2017, a number of high-profile child fatalities in Rhode Island signaled the need to improve early childhood interventions and child maltreatment prevention across the state. Rhode Island’s Department of Health (RIDOH) recognized the opportunity to engage more families facing adversity in First Connections, the state’s holistic short-term family home visiting program. Incidents of child maltreatment most commonly occur in families with children under five, directly aligning with the population that First Connections aimed to serve.

The Innovation

The Government Performance Lab (GPL) provided technical assistance to help Rhode Island’s Department of Health better connect Rhode Island families facing adversity with preventative home visiting services. They helped restructure contracts to focus providers on serving families most in need of help and provide more intensive outreach to connect these families to services.

The Results

With GPL support, RIDOH strengthened connections between families facing adversity and preventative home visiting services. As a result, more families facing adversity are being successfully connected to home visiting services and government and provider staff are more proactively coordinating to improve service delivery across home visiting programs.

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