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Developing the Home Visiting Workforce

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Home Visitation Programs

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Abstract

Home visitor trainers are called upon to examine and propose strategies for building an effective professional work force to partner with parents in order to create positive early childhood outcomes. This chapter explores a developmental approach to training and supporting early childhood education home visitors. It highlights parallels in the shared experience of children, parents, home visitors, and home-visiting trainers. Recognizing these parallels grounds and informs the training process, guiding it for the best interests of young children and families. The chapter posits a perspective of professional training and support that identifies relationships as the driving force in learning and growing together and offers guidelines and resources for training home visitors. The strategic training design offered in the chapter will help the home-visitor trainer guide home visitors through the myriad developmental thresholds experienced by children, their parents, home visitors, and their trainers. The chapter also offers nine training strands that are core content areas for training early childhood education home visitors.

The author thanks the hundreds of home visitors and many trainers he has learned from over the years. Special appreciation to Mary J. McGonigel, Sarah Mudd, Nancy Sinclair, and Kelly Woodlock.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Note that although female pronouns were used in this example and throughout the chapter for simplicity and clarity, both women and men are home visitors. Likewise, both mothers and fathers can be served in home visiting programs.

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Acknowledgments

The author thanks the hundreds of home visitors and many trainers he has learned from over the years. Special appreciation to Mary J. McGonigel, Sarah Mudd, Nancy Sinclair, and Kelly Woodlock.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ounce of Prevention Fund, Chicago, IL, USA

    Nick Wechsler MA

Authors
  1. Nick Wechsler MA
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Correspondence to Nick Wechsler MA .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Family, Consumer and Human Development, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, USA

    Lori Roggman

  2. Center for the Study of Violence, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

    Nancy Cardia

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Wechsler, N. (2016). Developing the Home Visiting Workforce. In: Roggman, L., Cardia, N. (eds) Home Visitation Programs. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17984-1_5

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