Home Visits: Necessary but Not Sufficient

In this article, Heather Weiss argues that home visits are a necessary but not sufficient component of all programs seeking to serve families and young children. Weiss reviews the history of home visiting programs and concludes that history reveals home visiting in and of itself has never been an effective silver bullet in addressing the complicated needs of families. Nevertheless, she reviews several experimental and quasiexperimental studies to conclude that home visiting has often been a critical element in successful programs for children and young families. Some of these studies are also described in the article by Olds and Kitzman in this journal issue. Based on her review, Weiss suggests that the most effective programs will be comprehensive, continuous, and family focused. She further suggests that program effectiveness rests, in part, on the availability and quality within the community of other services for families as well as on the capacity of the families to connect with such services. She concludes her article with a call for national commitment to a universal home visiting program, to be phased in through a series of demonstration projects.