Focus on Current Projects

Welcome Home Baby (WHB) is a no-cost maternal infant home visitation program for all first time parents and infants in the North Inland, North Central, North Coastal, Central, and East regions of San Diego County. Initiated in 2001, WHB is grant-funded, receiving monies from revenues of Proposition 10, a California ballot initiative that taxes tobacco products. The overarching and long-range goal of Proposition 10 and WHB is to ensure that children enter school ready to learn. WHB’s more immediate goal is to ensure the health and well-being of all first time parents and infants during the infants’ critical first year of life. This unique and innovative program serves all first time parents, regardless of socioeconomic status or ethnicity, recognizing that all new parents are a particularly vulnerable population.

Through a staff of eighteen, WHB employs a case management model commonly utilized in community-based health care as its theoretical framework. Both professional and para-professional home visitors, including registered nurses, health educators, lactation consultants/educators, registered dieticians, and social workers deliver a multidisciplinary model of health and social services. These various home visitors assess physical, developmental, and social aspects of both the parent and newborn and provide appropriate interventions, educational materials, and resource referrals as indicated.

How the IPH is helping...

Through the regular monitoring of key programmatic outcomes and conducting focus groups of participants, the IPH has assisted WHB with quality improvement, documenting the programs successes, and obtaining additional funding.

Focus #1 | Focus #2 | Focus #3

Posted: 11/28/06