Improving Home Visitor Professional Well-Being: A Resource for State and Tribal Home Visiting Programs, Model Representatives, and Local Programs

Many home visiting programs lack the tools and knowledge to boost staff well-being, including an overarching definition and framework to guide their path.

The Supporting and Strengthening the Home Visiting Workforce project seeks to understand professional well-being in the home visiting context: how it should be defined, measured, and bolstered to improve program and family outcomes.

This brief offers concrete ways for home visiting programs, models, and local agencies to measure and strengthen professional well-being. It focuses on five key drivers theorized to influence home visitor job satisfaction, psychological well-being, job meaning and fulfillment, and self-efficacy and confidence.

It builds on findings from a research report and conceptual model previously released by OPRE.

The brief details three key steps for programs to follow:

1. Identify a driver for improvement.
2. Select a strategy to address the identified driver.
3. Develop a plan to implement the strategy and track improvement.

Tools include (1) a list of measures to help users identify areas in need of change and track improvements and (2) suggested strategies tailored to the home visiting context.

The information presented adheres to basic concepts of continuous quality improvement. Examples stem from a conceptual model developed through a six-step, iterative process:

1. Review of commonly examined constructs, influential factors, and outcomes from preliminary literature review findings
2. Supplemental review of literature related to general well-being, worker well-being, and workforce well-being from broader disciplines, fields, and context
3. Review of existing conceptual models
4. Review of relevant theories for applicability to home visiting
5. Two input sessions with local program staff, awardees of the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program, Tribal MIECHV grantees, model representatives, and training/TA providers
6. Ongoing engagement with consultants with a focus on related areas

Sparr, M., Johnson, H., & Quigley Clark, M. (2022). Improving home visitor professional well-being: A resource for state and tribal home visiting programs, model representatives, and local programs (OPRE Report No. 2022-139). Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation; Administration for Children and Families; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Dimensions:Aspects of health, well-being, feelings, and attitudes that make up home visitor professional well-beingKey drivers:Factors that either interfere with or promote professional well-being

Types:

Report | Brief

OPRE Research Topics:

Home Visiting

Projects:

Supporting and Strengthening the Home Visiting Workforce (SAS-HV)