Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program Expansion Grants Announced

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has announced that it is accepting applications for Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Competitive Expansion Grants. MIECHV is a crucial part of the Affordable Care Act, aiming to build high-quality early childhood systems in order to improve health and development outcomes. The program funds go toward effective coordination of a variety of child health and development, early learning, child abuse prevention and family support services through home visiting.

Expansion Grants will be awarded to recognize states and jurisdictions that have made considerable progress towards implementing a high-quality, evidence-based home visiting program and are ready to take the program to scale. Funds will be used to expand the scale and/or scope of the existing state programs, with an emphasis on several key areas including development of comprehensive early childhood systems for children ages zero to eight, outreach to high-risk and hard-to-reach populations and development of a family-centered approach to home visiting.

HRSA plans on awarding 10 to 12 grants, with a ceiling amount of up to $7.2 million during Federal fiscal years 2013 and 2014. Funding beyond the initial year is dependent on availability of funds and satisfactory grantee performance. Eligibility is limited to states/territories that have received a competitive MIECHV Development Grant (to support modest home visiting programs) in Fiscal Year 2011 or have not yet received a competitive MIECHV grant. For a list of eligible applicants, check out the funding opportunity announcement. Applications are due July 1, 2013.

For examples of how states are integrating CSSP’s Strengthening Families framework into home visiting programs, see our recent issue brief.