Toward a nuanced assessment of the role of intensive home visiting in improving outcomes for families: commentary on Catherine et al. (2023)

Abstract

Families' experiences during the transition to parenthood and early childhood profoundly shape the lifetime trajectory of both parents and children, laying the foundation for societal inequities. Intensive home visiting programs, which aim to provide in‐home support to socio‐economically vulnerable parents during the transition to parenthood, are a prominent policy across the globe to provide support to less‐resourced families. In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Psychology and Psychiatry, in their article titled ‘Effectiveness of nurse‐home visiting in improving child and maternal outcomes prenatally to age two years: A randomised controlled trial (British Columbia Healthy Connections Project)’, Catherine et al. provide evidence from a randomized controlled trial of the impact of the Nurse‐Family Partnership in Canada on child injury, language and behavior and birth spacing outcomes. This commentary discusses the paper's contribution and reflects on opportunities and challenges in building a nuanced understanding of the evidence‐base supporting intensive home visiting programs.