Healthy Families New York Funding Opportunity

This September it is anticipated that the New York State Office of Children and Family Services will be releasing a Request for Proposals (RFP) to expand the Healthy Families New York (HFNY) program to unserved high-need communities. The HFNY model of home visitation services is modeled after Healthy Families America (HFA), a national program of Prevent Child Abuse America, designed to provide support for expectant and new parents.

HFNY offers home-based services prenatally or shortly after the birth of the child. Participants are screened to identify risk factors and stressors. Families who participate in the program are offered long-term in-home services until the child is in school or Head Start. HFNY focuses on the safety of children and supporting families. The services are easily accessible to isolated at-risk families and are respectful of cultural and community diversity. Approximately $2.3 million will be available in this RFP. Priority for funding will be given to high-need communities.

To develop a HFNY program, it is recommended that communities:

Convene a planning group before the RFP is released. One of the goals of HFNY is to screen
all expectant and new parents in the geographic target area for risk factors that would make the family eligible for the service. Therefore, agencies that can assist in the screening process must be included in the planning group. With HIPPA requirements, it is critical to have written referral agreements with prenatal health providers, hospitals, private OB-GYN providers, and community-based agencies. It is also important to have support and representation from the local departments of social services and health on the planning group.

Define your target area and conduct a needs assessment. HFNY sites serve specific high- risk geographic areas that rank above the state average on issues such as poverty, teen pregnancy, Medicaid births, infant mortality, maternal mortality, low birth weight, late or no prenatal care, and rate of indicated reports of child abuse and maltreatment. Target areas could be a county, part of a city, certain zip codes or census tracts, etc. It is important to identify a target area that is not too large for a community initiative and one where universal screening is feasible. This is important because sites will want to provide quality home visiting services in their target area and
not be overly ambitious. The needs assessment should review the number of births and risk factors in the target area.

Begin to identify the referral process. What agency will take the lead for the project? HFNY lead agencies include many different health and social services agencies. Will there be a centralized intake or will many
agencies screen and refer families? It will be important to be able to clearly state the role of all participating agencies and the role of community partners in the collaboration of services. It is also important to develop strategies to engage hard-to-reach families, including women who do not seek prenatal care.

Develop a draft work plan and identify key players. How will your HFNY site coordinate with existing services? How will you build community support and ownership for the program? Does your community or agency have funding to support a HFNY site? In the past, sites have been required to contribute ten percent of the total cost. How will the program accommodate cultural differences and use cultural and family strengths and resources?

It is important to become familiar with HFNY and with HFA standards. Information on HFNY can be found on the OCFS Web site, (click on Child Abuse Prevention Services, then on Home Visiting Team), or on the HFNY Web site, (click on Community Leaders, Funders). Information to assist you in learning about Healthy Families America is available on their Web site.

The Healthy Families America Site Development Guide gives a wealth of information on getting started, designing the program, budgeting, providing services, and maintaining the program. It is also recommended that interested sites become familiar with the HFA self-assessment guidelines, also available on their Web site.

Finally, HFNY is a very structured program that provides quality home visiting services to families at risk. It is critical that prospective sites bring passion, energy and commitment to providing quality services.

Top