Use of Emerging Technology to Enhance Home Visiting Service Delivery

Home visitors play a crucial role in supporting children and families during the earliest years of life, and emerging technology offers an opportunity to better support home visitors’ work and enhance home visiting service delivery.

At JBA, we are leading efforts to understand how home visiting programs can adapt to and use emerging technology. We are exploring several key areas, including—

• Digital media literacy. As screens become ubiquitous in the homes of young children, home visiting programs have a unique opportunity to promote healthy digital media habits early on. We are providing foundational information on how home visiting programs support parents to develop healthy digital habits, select age-appropriate content, and understand the impact of digital media on young children’s cognitive development, social-emotional skills, and health outcomes. We are also using national datasets to better understand digital media use among young children enrolled in home visiting programs nationally and associations with developmental outcomes.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) to increase administrative efficiency. Administrative burden, including scheduling, documentation, and data entry, is a leading cause of burnout for the home visiting workforce. We are surveying and talking with home visitors to gauge their openness to AI-driven automation and identify opportunities to leverage AI to reduce administrative burden.
• AI-powered training and individualized feedback. Home visitors benefit from practice-based, individualized feedback; however, they often report they do not have ongoing access to this type of training. We are exploring home visitor receptivity to AI-powered training and individualized feedback. This technology allows practitioners to practice difficult or sensitive conversations in a risk-free, virtual environment and to receive individualized, tailored feedback to strengthen their practice.

By gathering these insights, JBA aims to advance use of emerging technology to enhance home visiting service delivery and strengthen family outcomes.

Seeking guidance on adapting new technologies for your home visiting program? Connect with us: innovatehv@jbassoc.com