The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) has issued guidance regarding aspects of the CalWORKs Home Visiting Initiative (HVI). HVI authorizes voluntary home visits for certain CalWORKs households to support positive health, development and well-being outcomes for pregnant and parenting women, families and infants born into poverty.
Contractors must ensure that all home visitors receive implicit bias and cultural competency training. Contractors are encouraged to partner with local organizations to develop a curriculum that best suits the needs of home visiting program participants. Beyond required minimum training standards, counties are strongly encouraged to recruit home visitors who are culturally and linguistically matched to the CalWORKs population served, utilize culturally relevant community-based partners for resource and referral services, and integrate cultural competency into other training topics.
Counties must provide an informing notice about HVI in the CalWORKs intake packet. CDSS provided a sample informing notice.
CDSS also provided a sample outreach flyer. Counties must produce outreach documents in languages that “best represent the clients they are serving.”
Counties can provide $500 for the purchase of material goods during the course of home visiting services. Material goods include child safety kits, car seats, appliance repairs and adaptive equipment for children with disabilities. (All County Welfare Directors Letter, April 25, 2019.)