Defining, Measuring, and Supporting Family Economic Well-Being in Early Childhood Home Visiting: A Review of Research and Practices. OPRE Report 2023-117

Early childhood home visiting (ECHV) has the potential to support families' economic well-being. In ECHV, trained home visitors work in the home with expectant parents or families with young children. Generally, their services focus on supporting and improving maternal, child, and family health and development outcomes. Some ECHV models also address economic aspects of families' lives and have demonstrated positive effects on outcomes such as parents' income. Given the connections between economic stability, parenting, and caregivers' well-being, a stronger focus on family economic well-being in ECHV could benefit families in many ways. The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation in the Administration for Children and Families in collaboration with the Health Resources and Services Administration initiated the Supporting Family Economic Well-Being through Home Visiting (HomeEc) project to better understand how to define and measure family economic well-being and to learn how ECHV agencies have supported or could support it. This report summarizes the findings from targeted reviews of literature and practice documents from ECHV and related fields, such as social work, child welfare, and employment- and income-focused supports. It includes (1) a definition of family economic well-being; (2) a summary of the factors that contribute to or are influenced by it; (3) a summary of how it is measured in research and practice; (4) a set of practices that can support it; and (5) implications for later work on this project and future research.