About Illinois MIECHV

What is MIECHV?

The Maternal, Infant, Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program is the main source of federal funding for home visiting in Illinois.

MIECHV was designed to expand voluntary, evidence-based home visiting programs across the United States and improve the outcomes for pregnant women and families, particularly those considered at-risk.

For more information about the federal MIECHV program, visit the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) website; HRSA is the federal entity that administers MIECHV at the national level.

What Impact has MIECHV had in Illinois?

MIECHV has been a vital part of Illinois’ home visiting and early childhood systems. This is reflected in the following three main areas:

• Expansion and improvement of direct services – MIECHV funding has been used to fund 13 communities throughout the state and for projects that improve provider capacity and quality of services provided to families, like Infant Mental Health consultation.
• Funding innovations – MIECHV has enabled funding for pilot projects focused on very high risk families, including pregnant and parenting youth in the child welfare system and homeless families.
• Promotion of efficiency – MIECHV has enabled better streamlining of services and improved efficiencies through coordinated efforts among agencies within communities and coordinated intake processes.

Click Home Visiting Innovations (January 2021) to see a full description of Illinois Home Visiting Innovations.

Click here for examples of how MIECHV-funded services have successfully helped young children and families in Illinois. These examples have been compiled by MIECHV partners at Children’s Home + Aid.

What are the MIECHV Communities in Illinois?

In the state fiscal year of 2020, the MIECHV grant funded 23 home visiting and 12 coordinated intake agencies in 13 communities. The 13 funded MIECHV community collaborations are:

• Cicero
• DeKalb
• East St. Louis
• Elgin
• Kankakee County
• Lake County
• Macon County
• Mid-Central Cluster (Dewitt, Logan, McLean and Piatt counties)
• Peoria
• Rockford
• Southside Cluster; (Englewood/ Greater Grand Crossing in Chicago/ West Englewood )
• Stephenson/Jo Davies Counties
• Vermilion County

For a complete list of agencies and services funded by MIECHV click here.

What Home Visiting Models are funded in Illinois through MIECHV?

MIECHV funds two home visiting models in Illinois, as follows:

• Healthy Families America (HFA)
• Parents As Teachers (PAT)

Since the beginning of Illinois MIECHV, the Center for Prevention Research and Development (CPRD), School of Social Work, at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has served as the external evaluator for the MIECHV initiative.

The CPRD is responsible for leading the benchmark data collection, data quality, and evaluation efforts for the grant. As part of this work, for the last eight years, CPRD works with MIECHV LIAs on data collection, data quality, and generates an Annual Benchmark and Outcome Report that is made available on the CPRD web page.

Additional information and reports can be found on the University of Illinois CPRD MIECHV web page.