APPROACH

Lay Home Visiting — The Centerpiece of the MIHOW Program

Paraprofessional outreach workers visit parents in their own homes and in their own neighborhoods. They develop the trusting one-to-one relationships necessary for productive home visiting. As trained paraprofessionals, MIHOW workers are knowledgeable about pregnancy, childbirth, infant feeding, child development, and positive parenting. With mentors and a curriculum to guide them, they respond to each family's unique strengths and needs. They serve several roles — a helpful resource, confidant, and powerful role model. Through the outreach worker's example, participants gain confidence that they, too, can grow in new ways.

MIHOW'S FLEXIBILITY AND UNIFORMITY

MIHOW programs are flexible, tailored to the needs of the sponsoring agency, the community, and the families served. Local programs are sponsored by child care centers, primary healthcare facilities, or multi-service community agencies. Some sites employ outreach workers full-time, while others have part-time workers. But certain features are uniform throughout the network:

• MIHOW is community-based and community-development focused. The local sponsors, local leaders, and local outreach workers are involved at every stage of program development.
  
  
• MIHOW is strength-based. Outreach workers identify and build their interventions on the strengths of themselves, the families they serve, and the sponsoring agency.
  
  
• MIHOW recognizes that paraprofessionals and program participants are equal members of the community and have a mutual interest in making all of our lives better.
  
  
• MIHOW has no eligibility requirements and no charge for participating in the program.

MIHOW's Strength-Based Approach to Family Support

The foundation of all MIHOW services is the recognition that regardless of living conditions or circumstances every family has strengths. Helping the MIHOW staff and participants acknowledge and build on these strengths is the fuel that drives each MIHOW program. This process of self-discovery, encouragement, and action begins with the selection and training of outreach workers and continues throughout their MIHOW journey. The workers, in turn, apply the same skills to home visiting, focusing on the needs identified by the family members and using the family's strengths to address those needs. This approach sets the stage for healthy living, lasting motivation, and self-sufficiency. As a result, participating families, outreach workers, and the sponsoring agencies become confident and effective activists for improving the health and social services in their communities.