Best Starts’ Home-Based Services strategy and community partners El Centro de la Raza and Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services presented at the 2024 National Home Visiting Summit on February 1! The National Home Visiting Summit is an annual opportunity for home visiting and early learning professionals to learn, collaborate, and share knowledge with a goal of advancing equitable and high-quality home-visiting supports, structures, and systems.
Maria del Rocio Miranda from El Centro de la Raza, Kamalei (KK) Brandon from Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services’ Pilimakua Family Connections Program, and Chloe Leipzig, Best Starts Home-Based Services Program Manager, presented on Empowering Communities & Lived Experiences in Home Visiting Program Design.
“It was an honor to collaborate with (the Home-Based Services team) to identify commonalities that make our community informed programs successful, and then share it with the nation, because we have more similarities than differences. Home visiting takes us back to our roots and the beginning of our peoples. We dared to focus on community needs and use these to inform our programs by focusing on community wisdom, strengths, and collectivistic behaviors, to take back our agency, heal, and rebuild,” Maria del Rocio Miranda said.
The presentation focused on strengths identified and lessons brought forward from community-designed model programs. At the center it engaged participants in the national dialogue on the role of diverse forms of evidence and expertise in community centered work. Community-designed models start with community, are led by and for community and are implemented through connection to community. The workshop highlighted the importance of community wisdom, knowledge, and lived experience in building a comprehensive network of home visiting support that meets the needs of all families.
“Home Visiting helps us, as Indigenous families, return to the strong communities that others tried to take away from us,” said Kamalei (KK) Brandon, Pilimakua Family Connections Program Manager at Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services.“ We have always had Home Visiting. Our aunties, unties, tutus, mākua, uncles etc would come over to help us raise our keiki (children) in our nā ʻike a me nā hana (culture). We are reclaiming this practice; and, we must, for ourselves, our keiki (elders), and our kūpuna (ancestors).”
El Centro de la Raza and Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services’ community led programming demonstrate the importance of embedding adaptability, culture, and a strength-based approach into program design.
In addition to the Summit, Best Starts staff joined the Start Early team to provide Senator Patty Murray with an overview of home visiting in Washington state. The team discussed the benefits of home visiting for babies, young children, and families and shared beautiful stories of families and home visiting programs.
“I’m so grateful for the opportunity to share out the amazing work of our community partners,” said Chloe Leipzig, Best Starts Home-Based Services program manager. “I appreciate the ongoing conversations with state and local leaders as we continue to develop innovative solutions and build up strong home-based service supports for children and families.”
Best Starts is proud and so grateful to work in deep partnership with the home-based services community.
Learn More and Questions?
Learn more about El Centro de la Raza and Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services by visiting their websites. Learn more about Best Starts Home-Based Services strategy by reviewing our one-pager. If you have any questions, please email Chloe Leipzig, Best Starts Home-Based Services Program Manager at cleipzig@kingcounty.gov.
Read more about the Hummingbird Indigenous Family Services’ Pilimakua Family Connections Program by following the QR code on their flyer.
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