Home Visiting and Early Childhood Family Support professionals often share similar experiences and work towards common outcomes in their partnerships with families of children from the prenatal stage through the preschool years. While many of our offerings were initially developed to address the specific needs of home visiting professionals, we also provide numerous training opportunities that equip a wide array of professionals who partner with these families with essential knowledge and skills.
Our professional development programs are open to all professionals in the field of supporting families from the prenatal period through early childhood. This includes, but is not limited to, those in public health, Prenatal Care Coordination (PNCC) providers, Birth to Three programs, community healthcare workers, mental health consultants, and others. We are committed to making learning accessible through a variety of formats, including online, blended, and in-person options. Recognizing that resources are often limited within programs and organizations, our professional development is offered at low costs, with some opportunities provided free of charge. This approach enables professionals to engage with national frameworks, receive crucial training on required tools, and develop deeper levels of skills and knowledge necessary for effective partnership with families from diverse backgrounds and those facing various challenges.
To help both supervisors and staff understand the time commitment to each of the trainings offered, the following is a document that may be helpful to ensure success and completion of trainings attended.
Training Time Commitment Document (DOCX)
To truly bridge the gap between learning and practice, we integrate additional supports into many of our training events. These crucial resources are designed to facilitate the transfer of learning and ensure the implementation of new skills. Available either as an integral part of the class structure or accessible after course completion, these supports help sustain new knowledge and foster ongoing skill development. Research consistently demonstrates that such supplemental learning tools are critical for achieving tangible changes in professional practice. These include the following:
- Communities of Practice – Wikipedia defines a Community of Practice as a group of people who “share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly”. We offer several different Communities that are developed to further learning around the FAN framework, ASQ implementation, implementation of TSBIRT, the role of supervisor/ program leader, and for the role of professionals in home visiting.
- Coaching calls – Touchpoints, FAN, Lemonade for Life, Home Visitation Foundations- Participants of the training have calls or meetings to discuss implementation of content/ skills from the training and how they are being applied in everyday practice. Facilitators provide additional support for challenges and a space to deepen knowledge through peer learning and deeper discussion of application of concepts. These are built into the structure of the class and are a part of completion of the training.
To learn more about Evidence Based Home Visiting and how we support this work in Wisconsin, visit the Evidence Based Home Visiting webpage.
Many professionals will come to this work with varied backgrounds and skills. What we know is that one size does not always fit all and that there are many different experience levels within the professional workforce. For that reason, we provide several tiers of training to meet the needs of different learning styles and professionals at various stages of their career.