Spotlight: Sara Remington, Family Home Visiting Implementation Manager, RIDOH

Sara Remington serves as the RI Department of Health's (RIDOH) Family Home Visiting Implementation Manager, helping implement, guide, and support important home visiting efforts statewide, including the Healthy Tomorrows program with pediatric primary care practices.

How was the family home visiting program made possible in Rhode Island, and why was it important?

The 3 evidence-based programs available through RIDOH (Healthy Families America, Nurse-Family Partnership and Parents as Teachers) are funded by the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) Program through HRSA. There is also some funding through the state’s Preschool Development Block Grant. There is a short-term family visiting program, First Connections, that is supported by a mix of funding.

Through home visiting, the Healthy Tomorrows program was able to target which unique hurdles for families to improve care in RI, and why?

The family visiting program is excited to participate in the Healthy Tomorrows program. Programs and systems of care should not work with families in isolation. Healthy Tomorrows provides intentional opportunities for family visiting providers and pediatric medical homes to partner together and work alongside families. This is exciting, as families tell us that this is what they need. They want the different programs and services with which they are working to collaborate and work together.

How will Rhode Island build off the momentum of this program to focus on continued service coordination and family access to needed services and supports?

There is a culture of continuous quality improvement that is embedded within the family visiting program at RIDOH. The RIDOH team is committed to working with the family visiting agencies to take the best practices and lessons learned from Healthy Tomorrows and to replicate and adapt them with the specific pediatric medical homes with which they are working.