Virginia’s home visiting programs are trusted partners in communities throughout the Commonwealth. This trust has been earned over several decades of consistently strong performance, strategic partnerships, and above all, a clear, unwavering commitment to supporting and strengthening families. Virginia home visiting programs are an extraordinary example of the importance of public-private partnership. The system is strong and well-prepared to adapt to the changing needs of Virginia families and communities. Virginia leaders consistently turn to home visiting as the leader in evidence-based strategies demonstrating consistent impact and return on investment. Early Impact Virginia has built the key foundational elements necessary to ensure quality and scaled impact. Consistently, Virginia leaders expect home visiting to produce outcomes, communities understand the importance of quality programming and families want the type of personalized support that is built through relationship and connection with caring, skilled Home Visitors. Charged by the Virginia General Assembly in SFY’19 with the authority and responsibility to lead statewide efforts, Early Impact Virginia is pleased to present the following report on the state of the Commonwealth’s system of home visiting services and supports for expectant parents and families with young children.

Since 2019, Early Impact Virginia has partnered with stakeholders across the state to clearly define the home visiting system, adopt uniform service definitions and standards and collectively determine data indicators to measure impact. With these foundational elements in place, the Virginia Plan for Home Visiting was adopted in May 2019. This plan laid out a framework for success, but did not include the specific strategies to get there. The following year, Early Impact Virginia engaged more than 200 stakeholders in a community-based needs assessment and strategic planning process. This work continued in spite of significant disruptions due to the COVID pandemic with Early Impact Virginia publishing the state’s first comprehensive Home Visiting Needs Assessment in 2020 and Strategic Plan in 2021.

With a bold vision and clear understanding of community strengths and needs, Early Impact Virginia is leading statewide efforts to ensure that the foundational elements are in place for local programs to provide the highest quality services and achieve the greatest impact for all Virginia communities. Early Impact Virginia remains sharply focused on building the home visiting infrastructure while continuing to work in deep partnership with state partners to address systemic issues to optimize efficiency and effectiveness. This work has taken on greater importance as local programs and systems rebound and rebuild post-pandemic. Early Impact Virginia is working with state and local leaders to develop innovative strategies for local programs to regain their footing and to reimagine elements of home visiting system that no longer serve the system well. In particular, Early Impact Virginia is leading efforts to capitalize on technology solutions for systemic impact while also supporting state and local leaders to address a catastrophic funding crisis that has the potential to wipe out nearly 30 years of progress. State leadership is especially critical now as a statewide funding crisis threatens to eliminate more than two-thirds of local home visiting services. Projected TANF shortfalls will likely mean the loss of more than $13,000,000 in THE state directed funding supporting services in 92% of Virginia localities. Learn more about the Home Visiting Funding Crisis on pages 5-6.