A resource for home visitors to respectfully and effectively address adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) with families.
The most powerful people for reducing ACE scores in the next generation are parents. But parents must know about ACEs and their effects to realize this potential. Home visitors are uniquely positioned to talk with parents about ACEs because home visiting is relationship based, occurs within each family’s comfort zone, and starts early in the parenting experience.
Experienced home visitors know it is not enough to talk about risk. We also must talk about resilience. And brain science. And the generational impact of our life stories. This is why we use the NEAR acronym to describe our work: Neuroscience, Epigenetics, ACEs, and Resilience.
The NEAR@Home toolkit was developed as a self-study process and is being shared without cost or restrictions because we know that many programs do not have the financial resources for in person learning.
Funding from the Region X MIECHV Innovation Grant provided an opportunity for us to refine, disseminate, and evaluate a Facilitated Learning process. Multiple levels of evaluation and feedback from local home visiting programs found this process to be highly effective and responsive to the unique needs of individual staff and programs.
The NEAR@Home Facilitated Learning process is very different from most training programs. Thinking about childhood trauma stirs feelings in all of us, whether ACEs are part of our life story or not.
NEAR@Home Facilitators:
Implementation Science guides the structure of the learning process from a mutual exploration of fit and feasibility to follow up reflective consultation to assure implementation of these new skills.
Contact ProfessionalDevelopment@StartEarly.org to explore contracting for Facilitated Learning for your home visiting program and for states/systems in developing their own team of NEAR@Home Facilitators.
This Region X project is 100% funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under The Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, #UH4MC30465, total award of $3,957.620.00. This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.
Learn more about NEAR@Home and access relevant resources.
