Home Visitor Communication Techniques Toolkit

To develop responsive partnerships with families, home visitors must not only listen to families, but also show they are listening. Key communication strategies can help home visitors convey their understanding of families’ needs, recognition of their expertise as parents, and willingness to collaborate to support their emerging needs.

JBA is partnering with Johns Hopkins University and Erikson Institute to refine and disseminate a toolkit that will help home visitors develop responsive partnerships with families. The toolkit includes (1) guidance on using responsive partnership strategies across program models and with diverse families, (2) a video library to illustrate the strategies, and (3) guidance on incorporating the toolkit into program supervision. JBA also is leading project efforts to gather input from a stakeholder advisory group and local home visiting programs to develop and launch a web-based version of the toolkit. The-web based version will be released by the Home Visiting Applied Research Collaborative and made available on its website.