Intimate partner violence (IPV) is complex and unfortunately too common. Research shows that experiencing IPV has serious health impacts on the lives of survivors and their children. Systems that support families often find helping survivors and their children to be challenging. This is why partnerships between home visiting programs and IPV services are critical.
A recent issue brief by a team from PolicyLab, Maternity Care Coalition, and the City’s Office of Domestic Violence Strategies offers recommendations to develop these partnerships to prevent IPV.
Some of the recommendations include enhancing home visiting services. These are services that support pregnant people and families with young children. Support professionals, sometimes social workers or nurses, visit families in their homes. These services focus on improving parent and child health outcomes. While IPV is not the focus of home visiting programs, it is common and impacts health. Program participants can learn about healthy relationship practices to prevent abuse, or get connected to help earlier on. When home visiting and IPV services collaborate, they have the potential to make a big difference to survivors and their children.
How partnerships can be moved forward
Partnerships between IPV and home visiting services are still relatively new. Coordinating more support for these partnerships takes many forms. The following are some recommendations for stakeholders to create more cross-sector partnerships that will help to decrease IPV. The issue brief provides more detail:
| Who? | What? |
|---|---|
| Federal, state, and local policymakers and funding agencies | Make collaboration easier. Government agencies and policymakers can improve the funding process for cross-sector collaboration. Prioritizing collaboration can make it easier for programs to develop these partnerships. |
| State Medicaid and managed care partners | Use policy and data strategically. States can designate Medicaid and managed care plan funds to support programs for IPV survivors. They can also use data on IPV to better understand and communicate need for services. |
| IPV and home visiting service providers | Seek funding and technical support for building relationships. Some grants already have flexibility to support cross-sector partnerships. Providers can also look to existing examples to develop collaborations. |
Learn more
- Read the full issue brief for more information: Preventing IPV Through Partnerships Between Home Visiting Programs and IPV Agencies
- Learn about PolicyLab’s current project on home visiting and IPV.
- Visit Philly Families CAN to learn about home visiting programs in Philadelphia.
