Home Visiting
Fostering Equitable Access to High-Quality Early Childhood Services
The evidence-based home visiting program promotes efficient and equitable access to high-quality early childhood experiences and services from the prenatal period through early childhood.
Prenatal, infant and early childhood home visiting services help to strengthen the caregiver-child relationship, connect families to vital community resources and promote long-term healthy development and well-being. In Illinois, multiple state and federal funding streams support a variety of home visiting models across programs and communities, serving an estimated 22,000 families annually. However, for a variety of reasons, our home visiting system is not reaching nearly enough families who are eligible and could benefit from these voluntary services. We must be more responsive to the diverse needs and desires of parents and caregivers.
Our Goal
Preserve and increase access to evidence-based home visiting services to meet the needs of all eligible expecting and new families who want to participate.
Objectives
- Strengthen cohesion, coordination, and alignment across established home visiting models and funding streams, including doula services.
- Plan, operationalize, and scale innovative home visiting models that are responsive to the needs of key priority populations (as defined by the Early Learning Council).
- Facilitate awareness, connections, and referrals for both families and providers across other PN3-serving systems, including early childhood education and care, Early Intervention, maternal and child health, and child welfare.
- Recruit and retain a qualified, culturally responsive, representative, and adequately compensated home visiting workforce.
Home Visiting Priorities
Fiscal Year 2026
View our Home Visiting Priorities to learn how our coalition is moving the needle this fiscal year.