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Communities of Practice

The National Home Visiting Summit’s Communities of Practice are focused on developing peer learning communities dedicated to the most pressing issues in the home visiting field.

Become a Member

Topics & Webinars

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Communities of Practice

The National Home Visiting Summit’s Communities of Practice (CoP) focus on developing peer learning communities dedicated to the most pressing issues in the home visiting field. Learn more about CoP topics.

Community Membership

We seek professionals dedicated to the advancement of the home visiting field through collaboration and partnerships. The Summit’s communities serve to:

  • Provide a forum for community members to help each other with everyday work needs and problems
  • Develop and disseminate best practices, recommendations, and strategies for community members and the wider home visiting field
  • Organize, manage, and steward knowledge sharing from which the community can learn from and add to.
  • Create innovations ideas, new knowledge, and new practices

We have intentionally designed membership to include options for engagement that are accessible to the busiest of professionals. Community membership allows you to participate in the following:

  • Receiving the monthly CoP Digest Newsletter containing information on upcoming webinars and community news
  • Community Meetings – each CoP hosts 4-6 webinars throughout the year along with convening during the annual National Home Visiting Summit. Members will have access to join all community meetings and recordings
  • Project team participation
  • Engage in designing and presenting at the poster session at the annual National Home Visiting Summit

Become a Member

Sign-up to become a member of one or more communities of practice. Members will receive news and updates, and access to innovative learning experiences from each of our peer learning communities.

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Communities of Practice Topics

We are excited to announce two separate communities. Each will focus on one of the following topics:

About

The community of practice on professional development will provide community-based program and state leaders, policy makers and researchers a forum to engage about professional development within the home visiting field. This community explores facets of professional development to promote research-based and promising practices by practitioners and supervisors that advance their professional effectiveness. It also explores state level strategies and national initiatives that promote professionalism of the home visiting workforce. Membership in this community offers a venue for new connections to leaders in home visiting professional development. It also encourages members to add their expertise to an ongoing national discourse and to collaborate between webinars to endeavors that advance home visiting professional development.

Areas of focus include:

  • Dimensions of professional development including classroom and web-based training, coaching/mentoring, technical assistance and continuous quality improvement.
  • Research efforts that shape and inform home visiting professional development.
  • Innovations, initiatives and resources in professional development that advance practice and professionalism of the home visiting workforce.

Facilitators 

  • Amanda Costello, Director, National Home Visiting, Start Early
  • Mary Towers, Program Advisor, Home Visiting & Doula Network of Illinois, Start Early

Project Teams

Project teams are currently placed on pause. Updates will be provided soon!

The Community’s projects aim to advance the effectiveness of professional development to prepare and support the home visiting workforce to achieve outcomes with families. Project teams comprise Community members with diverse roles in home visiting and professional development. Members may have years of experience in home visiting or bring fresh eyes to the topic of the team. Therefore, the collective examination of a topic is multidisciplinary, informed by rich lived experiences, reflects geographically influenced resources, and culturally informed perspectives. As a result, team projects contribute to the broader field of home visiting and professional development that could not be made by a single member alone. Team members are sought who have an interest in this year’s study and can contribute 10 hours to a project’s development between August 2023 and December 2023. Support is also provided for those who want to use the project experience to meet personal or professional development goals.

Upcoming Webinars

Professional Development Community of Practice Webinar 

  • Coming Soon!

Past Webinars

Watch our past Professional Development CoP webinars and access resources shared:

  • November 2022
  • February 2023
  • National Home Visiting Summit March 2023
  • May 2023
  • July 2023
  • November 2023
  • February 2024
    • Features the return of Community member, Vidya Ragoo, National Home-Based Child Care Model Director, to talk about the ParentChild+ ‘parent-to-staff’ model of support and professional development.
  • May 2024
    • Features the efforts to design, establish and implement affinity groups for home visitors across the state of Oklahoma. Resources from webinars that support the use of human centered design to elevate the voices of home visitors and their well-being.
  • August 2024
    • Building the Advocacy Skills of Home Visitors Part 1:  Home visitors have – and can further develop – a set of competencies that can be translated into advocacy activities and situations. The purpose of this two-part webinar series is to define the many ways in which home visitors can serve as advocates for families, themselves, colleagues, and the workforce as a whole – from case advocacy to systems and policy advocacy – and to explore the role of professional development in building and enhancing the skills needed for effective advocacy.
    • Slides

GENERAL RESOURCES:

 

About

This community of practice on advocacy focuses on providing state and national advocates with sound policy information and outreach strategies to promote greater state and federal investment in effective home visiting services for children and families in need across our nation. As an integral component of advocacy, this community delves into policy issues that cross innovative financing mechanisms, a broad range of policy arenas, such as health, early childhood, anti-poverty and child welfare, among others, and outreach strategies to engage federal, state and local policymakers.

The Community Focuses on Such Topics as: 

  • Promoting a broad range of funding sources for the expansion of home visiting services, such as Medicaid, TANF, and innovative financing mechanisms, such as pay-for-performance initiatives and tax policies
  • The intersection between child welfare policy and home visiting, including opportunities for the expansion of home visiting to the child welfare and similar populations through the Family First Prevention Services Act
  • Cultural and linguistic responsiveness of home visiting programs to provide effective services to diverse children and families
  • Understanding and messaging the national evaluation of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program to conduct outreach to policymakers and others
  • Pay-for-Performance initiatives in home visiting as a mechanism to finance expanded services and secure greater private and public funding for home visiting

Facilitators:

  • Kayla Goldfarb, Policy Specialist, Start Early
  • Michelle Hughes, Owner, Michelle Hughes Consulting

Upcoming Webinars

Advocacy & Policy Community of Practice Webinar

  • January 14, 2025, 1:30 p.m. – 3 p.m. CT
  • January 22, 2025, 1 – 2:30 p.m. CT
  • February, 26, 1 – 2:30 p.m. CT

Past Webinars

Watch our past Advocacy & Policy CoP webinars and access resources shared:

Community of Practice Posters

Community of Practice (CoP) posters from the 2024 National Home Visiting Summit are available below as a resource. These include a poster from the Advocacy & Policy CoP highlighting their work from the previous year, as well as posters from two Professional Development Project Teams on this year’s research projects.

View Posters

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