Tribal Home Visiting

Tribal Home Visiting

Tribal, Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (TMIECHV)

The Maajtaag Mnobmaadzid Tribal Home Visiting Initiative seeks to address persistent disparities in maternal, infant, and early childhood health and social indicators among the American Indian (AI/AN) population through delivery of home visiting services.  The project aims to expand the capacity of an existing network of services, furthering progress toward a comprehensive, high-quality early childhood system.

Tribal Home Visiting services are supported within the following tribal communities and serve expectant families and families with young children aged birth to kindergarten entry.

Participating Tribes and Organizations

  • American Indian Health and Family Services
  • Bay Mills Indian Community
  • Lac Vieux Desert Band of Chippewa Indian Community
  • Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians
  • Keweenaw Bay Indian Community
  • Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi
  • Pokagon Band of Potawatomi
  • Saginaw-Chippewa Indian Tribe

Program Goals

The goals of the Tribal Home Visiting Program include:

  • Supporting the development of happy, healthy, and successful American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) Children and families through a coordinated home visiting strategy that addresses critical maternal and child health, development, early learning, family support, and child abuse and neglect prevention needs.
  • Implementing high-quality, culturally-relevant, evidence-based home visiting programs in AI/AN communities.
  • Expanding the evidence base around home visiting intervnetions with Native populations.
  • Supporting and strengthening cooperation and coordination and promoting linkages among various early childhood programs, resulting in coordinated, comprehensive early childhood systems.

Coordinated Services

Collaboration is important to our programs at Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan.  Within the Maternal & Early Childhood Services Department this can be seen specifically between our Tribal Home Visiting, Healthy Start, and State Funded Home Visiting Programs.  These have joined forces as individual pieces of an overall, inter-tribal network of home visiting programs and services coordinated by the Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan in partnership with Michigan tribes.  The programs to the communities appear as one, and are often referred to by staff as the “Healthy Start-Family Spirit” home visiting program.  The development of the Healthy Start-Family Spirit Home Visiting program is one key aspect of our comprehensive, coordinated early childhood system with all programs using the Family Spirit Model as a basis for providing home visitation services.  In addition, the programs share client-friendly referral procedures, using common assessments, collection of common data elements, cross-training of staff, and cross-program case management.  This allows for a seamless transition between programs for home visiting clients.

Contact Information