Virtual Home Visiting Roundtable Discussions

I nstrument 1: Virtual Home Visiting Roundtable Discussion Guide

1/26/22

Introduction

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and Administration for Children and Families (ACF) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will be holding a series of virtual roundtables to discuss virtual home visiting services. HRSA and ACF wish to learn from and build on knowledge gained, both before and during the COVID-19 health emergency, concerning the implementation of home visiting services through virtual means, and discuss implications for the field.

The virtual roundtables will bring together representatives from organizations working in the field of home visiting at the national level, such as federal staff, model developers, researchers, technical assistance providers, and advocates; state and territory MIECHV administrators, LIA staff, and families participating in home visiting services; and Tribal leaders, Tribal MIECHV home visiting program administrators, LIA staff, and families participating in home visiting services. Participation is voluntary, and information will be kept private. Each roundtable is scheduled to include two (2) hours dedicated to the discussions with participants.

These roundtables will be a forum to discuss what is known about virtual home visiting and how the field intends to continue to learn and innovate into the future. We hope that this series of roundtables will allow us to hear a variety of perspectives on virtual home visiting.

Specifically, during the roundtables, we aim to identify:

• Benefits, challenges or barriers, and lessons learned related to providing virtual home visiting;

• Innovative approaches to virtual service delivery;

• Relevant research that has been conducted or is being conducted, and research questions that would be of interest to answer with future work; and

• Strategies for strengthening home visiting programs in general and the MIECHV Program in particular. 

The primary intended use of the information collected during the roundtable discussions is to inform ACF and HRSA’s understanding of how the home visiting field is prioritizing the implementation of and planning for virtual home visiting in states, territories, and Tribal entities, which will help inform implementation of the MIECHV Program, provide technical assistance to MIECHV awardees and Tribal MIECHV grantees, and inform future research and evaluation activities. The information will also likely be of interest and helpful to the home visiting field beyond MIECHV as well; therefore, findings from the roundtable discussions will be summarized and shared publicly via a brief report that will be prepared by the contractor and posted on the OPRE website. Comments summarized in the report will not be attributed to individual speakers by name.

Questions to guide conversation during the roundtable discussions:

1. What constitutes virtual home visiting? 

For example:

• How do you define a virtual home visit? For example, is a text message sufficient to “count” as a virtual visit? What types of services and interactions must a virtual home visit include?

• What is model guidance related to virtual service delivery, both prior to COVID and post-COVID? What are minimum requirements from the model perspective for conducting a virtual home visit? What does model fidelity look like?

• Do requirements associated with virtual home visiting vary across funding streams?

2. What has been the experience of virtual home visiting [for each interest group]? 

For example:

• How did interest groups feel about their experiences with virtual home visiting – what did they like, what did they find challenging, etc.?

• What technology allowed families/home visiting programs/home visitors to connect effectively? What technology did each group have before COVID, and what did they need to acquire? Was there anything missing?

• How has virtual home visiting aligned with or misaligned with the cultural and local needs of the families and communities being served?

• If there are different requirements for virtual home visiting across funding streams, in what ways do they conflict or make it challenging to implement services?

• How has virtual service delivery influenced overall program implementation?

3. What do various interest groups hope home visiting will look like in the future?

For example:

• What virtual services are interested groups hoping/planning to continue to allow post-pandemic to facilitate family engagement in home visiting services?

• In which scenarios or situations would it be critical to continue to allow for virtual service delivery?

• What do models and researchers say about the ideal breakdown between virtual and in-person home visiting? What proportion of in-person vs. virtual would be preferable to families/home visitors?

• How are interested groups thinking about how technology can be sustained in the future for families and home visitors? How can we ensure that families are not “left behind”?

• How do interested groups think about “model fidelity” in the future in the context of virtual home visiting?

4. How has virtual service delivery affected data collection?

For example:

• How is the ability to collect data on certain constructs and measures impacted by virtual service delivery?  

• What measures, if any, can only be collected in person? 

• Are screening tools validated for virtual data collection? 

• Is it okay/are we comfortable mixing data that has been collected in-person vs. virtually?

• What challenges do families/home visitors face when collecting data virtually?

5. How does virtual home visiting affect where families are being served?

For example:

• How have families that moved been served with virtual service delivery? What do hand offs to other home visiting programs or local services look like? Have families been able to continue to be served virtually by their same home visitor? What are the implications of this?

• How does virtual service delivery affect referrals to community services, and coordination with other local services when families move?

6. What does research tell us about virtual service delivery?

For example:

• What is the research base around impact of various types of virtual service delivery?

• What research is currently underway to understand the impact and effectiveness of virtual service delivery?

• What does research tell us about the implementation of virtual home visiting, experiences of families and home visitors, etc.?

• What research is currently underway to help us understand how to most effectively implement virtual home visiting?

7. What have we not asked that we should? What else should the field be considering?

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An agency may not conduct or sponsor, and a person is not required to respond to, a collection of information unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number. The OMB number for this information collection is 0970-0531 and the expiration date is 07/31/2022.