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Bridging the Divide between Child Welfare and Home Visiting Systems to Address the Needs of Pregnant and Parenting Youth in Care

Article
By: Amy Dworsky, Elissa R. Gitlow, Kristen Ethier - University of Chicago February 21, 2025
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This article presents findings from an implementation study of a pilot project that connected pregnant and parenting youth in care with home visiting services. It draws primarily on semistructured interviews conducted with the practitioners who delivered those services and the parents who received them. We find that home visiting services can be delivered successfully to pregnant and parenting youth in care and that both practitioners and parents reported that parents benefit from those services. We also find that engaging and delivering services to pregnant and parenting youth in care presents substantial challenges and that home visiting programs sometimes deviated from their standard practices in response. The study has implications for future efforts to provide home visiting services to pregnant and parenting youth in care or to other families involved in the child welfare system.

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