Christina Hoag | Freelance Writer |
April 25, 2024
In April, four of Los Angeles County’s biggest cities officially recognized Home Visiting Day for the first time, a sign of home visiting’s expanding public awareness and the region’s leading role in the programs that have been shown to strengthen parenting and families.
Representatives from a home visiting program at Antelope Valley Partners for Health Welcome Baby program pose with the proclamation presented by the City of Palmdale.
City councils in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Lancaster and Palmdale all issued proclamations and recognitions honoring Home Visiting Day on April 19. In doing so, they joined the L.A. County Board of Supervisors, which, for the third consecutive year, proclaimed Home Visiting Day as the third Friday in April. Additionally, a representative from Congresswoman Nanette Diaz Barragán’s (CA-44) office presented a proclamation at a Best Start Wilmington meeting.
“Los Angeles County has the largest early childhood home visiting network in the nation and the City of Los Angeles is proud to be a part of that,” stated the Los Angeles City Council proclamation sponsored by Councilmember Kevin DeLeon.
More than 1,500 home visitors serve about 36,000 families a year throughout Los Angeles County.
“On this day we recognize the hard and incredible transformative work that home
visitors do in helping families access services,” said Supervisor Hilda Solis, who together with Supervisor Janice Hahn, sponsored the county proclamation.
Home visiting is a free and voluntary program that provides families with a trusted and trained professional who offers expecting and parenting families the resources they need to thrive. Home visitors are trusted and trained professionals who provides in-person or virtual visits to offer information and support about child- rearing, as well as referrals to other programs and services, such as food aid, charitable services, parent support groups, mental and health care services, lactation support and more. First 5 LA is a key funder of home visiting, which has been shown to reduce child abuse, improve school readiness and strengthen families. State and federal funding streams also support home visiting programs.
It was exciting and gratifying to receive new recognition and support this year, said Sharlene Gozalians, the executive director of LA Best Babies Network, which supports home visiting through technical assistance and training. She noted that the proclamations will help boost the profile of home visiting and underscore how the word is spreading about the program’s myriad benefits. 
“Eleven years ago, when we first started doing this work, it was a small group of agencies doing this,” she said. “Now we have 40 agencies, 14 hospitals and 26 community-based organizations.”
Most of those organizations now make up the L.A. County Perinatal and Early Childhood Home Visitation Consortium, a countywide initiative managed by LA Best Babies Network.
This year’s Home Visiting Day, with the theme, “Strengthening Families, One Visit at a Time,” was marked with social media activities, staff celebrations at various home visiting agencies, an updated website and a newly upgraded online resource directory where families can easily find home visiting programs that meet their needs in their own neighborhoods.
Obstetrics doctor, Dr. Julius Kpaduwa at Emanate Health – Queen of the Valley Hospital
Home Visiting Day also came in conjunction with Black Maternal Health Week, held April 11 to 17, which focuses on highlighting disparities in prenatal care and birth outcomes in Black families.
The growing awareness of home visiting means more people are interested in both becoming home visitors and accessing services, Gozalians said. “It’s getting easier to enroll families because more people know about it,” she said. “The ripple effect of home visiting on relatives, friends, neighbors is immense.”
Gozalians added that L.A. County’s success with home visiting is also garnering more attention from organizations in other counties and states interested in both starting and expanding home visiting programs. “They want to know how we do it,” she said.
Home visiting is administered through a variety of programs designed to meet the different needs of families. Programs can start with pre-natal visits or at birth and typically assist parents through the early stages of child rearing.
Supervisor Hahn said one of the remarkable aspects of home visiting is that it helps families in many ways, from housing to mental health, in addition to child-rearing guidance. “It provides a lifeline to services,” she said.
Irene Perez Ramirez said she signed up for the Welcome Baby home visiting program
at her local hospital while pregnant. Her home visitor was able to help her pinpoint and resolve some problems she was experiencing in breastfeeding that had caused her newborn daughter to lose weight two weeks after birth, prompting her doctor to recommend supplemental bottle-feeding.
But thanks to the home visitor’s help, Ramirez was able to continue exclusively breastfeeding her baby, which was her goal. Now a data manager for the Welcome Baby program at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, she is proud to be working for a program that has such a positive impact on families.
“I want other parents to have the positive experience, the support and resources caring for their baby that I had when I was caring for my baby,” she said.
