Research to Practice

Curricula delivered at the home visits are an important part of improving the lives of the families we serve through Healthy Families New York (HFNY). These curricula help facilitate bonding between families and staff, teach parents about child development, and encourage positive parent-child interaction.

However, we also noted that we needed to revisit the curricula currently identified as “HFNY Approved” to review the evidence base and provide more up-to-date recommendations. We also wanted to further explore curricula that represent especially good tools for serving special interest groups, such as young parents and fathers, as neither group had particularly high rates of targeted curricula implementation in our full analysis

In late 2019, HFNY formed a “Curriculum Committee” to identify an updated set of evidence-informed primary HFNY curricula, and to note the best curricula for special interest groups. We also seek to ensure that the endorsed curricula are culturally appropriate for the families served. This Committee includes representatives from all three branches of Central Administration and many program staff, including home visitors, supervisors, and program managers; members are now working to answer these questions. We are also reaching out to other states to determine which curricula they find to be the most useful. Committee members and Central Administration can then have conversations with programs and staff to engage programs in using the new recommended curricula, help programs plan for the associated costs of the different curricula they may choose, and help programs choose curricula that are appropriate for special interest groups and for the specific and diverse communities they serve.