#HomeVisitingWorks: Honoring the Changemakers at the 2021 Family Strengthening Network Summit
Over 70,000! That’s how many home visits the Family Strengthening Network conducted this fiscal year to support families in Los Angeles County. Combine that with nearly 200 hours of training that each home visitor receives after they’re hired, and you’ve got a busy bunch of people.
That doesn’t leave a lot of time for celebrating, so we carve out a spot on the calendar each year just for that. This year, on June 17, we convened the 14 Welcome Baby hospital programs, along with the more than two dozen agencies affiliated with Healthy Families America and Parents as Teachers home visiting programs, to honor the changemakers who demonstrate each day that #HomeVisitingWorks.
LA Best Babies Network — in partnership with First 5 LA, Maternal and Child Health Access, PAC/LAC, Work2Live Productions, California Hospital Medical Center, and LA County’s Department of Mental Health, Department of Public Health, and Department of Public Social Services — hosted this sixth annual (and second virtual) event. Affirming remarks from leaders in the county, an inspiring and insightful keynote, an impressive presentation of impressive data, a chat with two moms and their home visitors, a spoken word presentation, and even a yoga stretch — it’s all in the video recordings below.
Leading up to the event, we also gave staff members the opportunity to recognize each other. See the nearly 200 shout-outs they gave to highlight their coworkers’ dedication, hard work, kindness … and all kinds of other honorable qualities these changemakers possess.
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Part 4: “Being More Than One Thing, Finding More Than One Way,” a presentation by Junlei Li, Ph.D, of Harvard Graduate School of Education, affirming the resourcefulness and versability of professionals who support children and families, and highlighting the importance of human relationships in helping people get through challenging times.