About Us

Rapid Response Home Visiting began in April 2020 immediately after nationwide social distancing mandates that followed the COVID-19 outbreak. Originally called the Rapid Response Virtual Home Visiting collaborative, the project was designed to provide best practice principles and strategies to support all home visiting professionals in maintaining meaningful connection with families during the time of increased anxiety and need. 

Through collaboration, the Rapid Response Home Visiting project worked to leverage the extensive resources and expertise that exists across home visiting organizations to support the development and distribution of cross-model, cross system approaches and guidance. 

Providing immediate support for our front-line home visiting staff and the families they serve was our highest priority. 

Then and now, the Rapid Response Home Visiting project has remained committed to creating processes to facilitate collaborative content development and shared decision making. 

Guiding Principles

Accessible:

  • All materials will be provided free of charge and made accessible to providers through the Institute and other platforms. 

  • All Information and resources shared will be designed to meet the needs of all home visiting professionals. 

  • All materials developed as a result of this project will remain available to support future needs of the field. 

Strength-based: 

  • Include as many provider networks as possible in content and resource development. 

  • All providers bring unique and important views. Expertise will be sought based on content area and specific needs. 

  • Every effort will be made to be as inclusive as possible. However, it is important to remember that no one individual or organization is expected to have expertise in every area. Please assess your own areas of strength and capacity to determine those areas in which you believe it is most important to be involved. 

Shared Responsibility:

  • Rapid Response Home Visiting offers a streamlined process for information gathering and sharing that is inclusive of all providers. 

  • It is up to each provider network to determine the most efficient way for inclusion in rapid decision making and content review. 

  • To maintain a rapid response framework, we recognize that perfection may not be possible. We will all do our best to get things right the first time and will graciously accept constructive suggestions for future improvement. 

  • Each provider network is responsible for sharing this work with local providers.

Collaborative Structure 

Steering Team: Leads the Work 

Advisory Team: Guides the Response 

Thought leaders from across the field including National Model Alliance Member organizations, State and Locally-based home visiting programs, Brazelton Touchpoints Center, Association of State and Tribal Home Visiting Initiatives (ASTHVI), HV-ImpACT, HV-CoIIN, the National Home Visiting Resource Center (NHVRC), EDC/MIECHV Technical Assistance Resource Center (TARC), and University of Southern California.  

Resource Team: Develops the Content

Subject Matter Experts from across the field, including lead partner, Brazelton Touchpoints Center and existing training and technical assistance systems support the development and delivery of webinar content and supplemental resource materials. 

Model Team

Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up, Avance, BabyTalk, Child First,

CHIP, Family Connects, Family Spirit, Head Start/Early Head Start, Healthy Families America,

HIPPY US, Nurses for Newborns, Nurse Family Partnership, ParentChild+, SafeCare

Special Thanks

This project is generously supported by the Heising-Simons Foundation, the Pritzker Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. The contents are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the funding organizations.