Overview
Great Circle believes creating loving, nurturing relationships at the start of life is a cornerstone of healthy development. Our home visiting program takes a strength-based, family-centered approach to parent and child education. While we have various programs that provide home visiting, all of our parent educators focus on the same thing – promoting positive parenting, healthy parent-child boding and sibling relationships, family goal setting and more – all to create a strong foundation for family life, positive child development, healthy interactions and school readiness.
Great Circle offers home visiting based on a family’s need and their location in Missouri or eastern Kansas. And we use two proven, evidence-based models – Healthy Families America ® and Motivational Interviewing – to drive our home visiting efforts.
How Home Visiting Supports Families
“Home visiting” refers to multiple in-home programs from Great Circle.
In Missouri – Great Circle has been funded by the Missouri Department of Social Services’ Children’s Division to provide free, voluntary home visiting for expectant and new parents throughout Missouri.
- Using the Healthy Families America model, Great Circle’s parent educators work with families with children ages 0-36 months to build parenting skills and reduce family stress, as a way to prevent child abuse and neglect.
- Home visiting services are available throughout Missouri. See “Serving These Counties” sidebar for the specific counties.
Additional Missouri programs – Great Circle offers additional home visiting programs based on region-specific requirements.
- Healthy Families America-St. Louis area: For at-risk teen parents and pregnant teens, ages 12-23, living in City of St. Louis who are 1st/2nd time moms, living at/below the 185% poverty rate and who qualify for federal social service benefits. Focus is on pre-natal/infant health, maternal mental health and family stability.
- Intensive In-Home Services: Short-term, home-based intensive crisis intervention to enable families to remain safely together and avoid out-of-home placement of children whenever possible. Click here for more program details.
In Kansas – Great Circle is funded by the State of Kansas through a Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) federal grant to provide free home visiting services to families in 16 eastern Kansas counties. Families are referred by Kansas’ Department of Children and Families.
- Using the Healthy Families America model and Motivational Interviewing in conjunction, Great Circle’s parent educators work with families with children ages 0-36 months to build parenting skills and reduce family stress, as a way to prevent child abuse and neglect.
- Great Circle serves residents of 16 eastern Kansas counties. See “Serving These Counties” sidebar for the specific counties.
Evidence-Based Models
Healthy Families America (HFA): HFA is the national recognized, evidence-based home visiting program of Prevent Child Abuse America®. HFA supports families in the home and focuses on building nurturing, safe and secure relationships between parent and child. In national studies, HFA has demonstrate positsive outcomes for children and families, including:
- Fewer substantiated child abuse/neglect reports and hospitalizations due to child abuse
- Less emotional and physical abuse, and hard discipline
- 49% reduction in child protective services reports
- Increased use of positive parenting practices
Motivational Interviewing (MI): MI is a goal-directed, client-centered counseling style that creates behavioral change by helping clients resolve negative motivations. MI has been used for more than 30 years, can be easily learned by a broad range of providers, and is complementary to other treatment methods. MI is based on five principles:
- Express empathy through reflective listening
- Develop discrepancy between clients' goals/ values and current behavior
- Avoid argument and direct confrontation
- Adjust to client resistance rather than opposing it directly
- Support self-efficacy and optimism
For more information about home visiting programs, click on the links provided or contact Great Circle at 1-844-424-3577.
