Healthy Families Oregon

Healthy Families Oregon (HFO) is a free, voluntary home visiting program that offers support and education to families who are expecting or parenting newborns.

What is Healthy Families Oregon?

During home visits (which may be virtual due to COVID-19), each family’s values and strengths are honored. Trained staff support and empower parents to build nurturing parent-child relationships, learn about child development, and access community resources. Families choose to participate in weekly home visits for six months or longer, depending on what they need and want. The visits can continue for up to three years.

Healthy Families seeks to ensure that all of Oregon’s communities have nurturing, caring families where children are healthy and thriving. Healthy Families Oregon achieves this goal by enhancing family functioning and promotes positive parent-child relationships during home visits.

How Do Families Sign Up?

Call your local Healthy Families Oregon program today! Once families are screened and identified as eligible for home visiting services based on the New Baby Questionnaire criteria, families are assigned to a Home Visitor

All HFO sites will screen families using the New Baby Questionnaire (NBQ) for eligibility. The determination of eligibility for services using the NBQ is conducted prenatally or within 14 days after the baby’s birth.

What Does Healthy Families Oregon Support?

Healthy Families Oregon is a multi-site state program accredited by Healthy Families America (HFA), an affiliate of Prevent Child Abuse America – the nation’s oldest and largest organization committed to preventing child maltreatment. In 2019, community HFO programs provided screening and referral services to 4,666 families of newborns (11% of all Oregon births) and evidence-based, intensive home visiting services to 1,961 of Oregon’s most vulnerable families. HFO is shown to increase children’s readiness for school by helping families to raise securely attached, curious children who continue to learn and grow when they reach kindergarten. More about program can be found in the 2019 Healthy Families Oregon Status Report Tables prepared by NPC Research.

This work contributes to several of Oregon’s Early Childhood Benchmarks:

Increasing school readiness
Improving health outcomes for children and families
Reducing the incidence of child abuse and neglect Healthy Families Oregon promotes positive parent-child relationships, supports healthy childhood growth and development and enhances family functioning by:
- Building trusting, nurturing relationships with parents
- Teaching parents to identify strengths and utilize problem-solving skills
- Improving the family’s support system through linkages and appropriate referrals to community services