Explore careers in home visiting!

If you’re passionate about nurturing healthy families, home visiting might be the career for you.

Explore careers in home visiting!

If you’re passionate about nurturing healthy families, home visiting might be the career for you.

What Is Home Visiting?

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Home visiting is a program that supports New Mexico families with young children prenatal through age five using a multi-generation approach. Home visitors support both caregivers (including parents, grandparents, and other family caregivers) and children. As a home visitor, you’ll meet with families in their homes (or sometimes virtually) to provide guidance, connect caregivers with important resources, perform screenings, and offer nonjudgemental assistance with childrearing or interpersonal issues that families may be facing.

As a home visitor, you’ll play an essential role in building healthy families and communities. You’ll develop lasting relationships with parents, caregivers, and young children while serving as a trusted resource and encouraging supporter. You’ll collaborate with all kinds of programs, community services, and local resources to help create a unique system of support for each family you serve. And perhaps most importantly, you’ll be helping to build a brighter future for New Mexico families - one parent, caregiver, and child at a time.

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Home visitor Olga Neave plays outside with one of her client families.

Featured Professional: Olga

“I really, really like this program because I help the families.”
When Olga Neave knocks on the door to visit a family, the children in the home are often excited to see her. “When they see us, they’re like, ‘Oh, Olga is coming!’ They get all excited,” she said. “They’re excited to work with us, and play with us.”
Read Olga’s Story
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Home Visiting Career Pathways

Home Visitors

As a home visitor, a large portion of your day-to-day tasks will involve meeting with families in their homes to help answer caregiver questions, check in on developmental milestones, and connect families with community resources like health care providers, government services, and related family programs.

Although some home visiting programs offer a mix of remote and in-person services, in general, you can expect to spend at least 25%-50% of your working hours on travel and face-to-face meetings with a caseload of around 15 to 25 families. The rest of your time will be spent on researching helpful resources for families, administrative tasks like data entry and reporting, and ongoing professional development.

To start your career in home visiting, you’ll need at minimum a high school diploma. As a home visitor, you’ll also be expected to complete required training on the job and participate in ongoing professional development. In New Mexico, this means working towards professional endorsements offered through the New Mexico Association for Infant Mental Health (NMAIMH). If you don’t yet have a degree, you’ll need to obtain the Infant Family Studies Certificate or Community Health Worker Certificate within two to three years of being hired in a home visiting role.

Home Visiting Supervisors

There are many opportunities for professional growth in home visiting. With an associate degree in early childhood education and a few years of experience, you could become a supervisor for a home visiting program, offering administrative support and leadership to a team of home visiting professionals. Home visiting supervisors usually carry a small caseload of families while also overseeing the home visiting staff in their program.

Supervisors ensure family visits and screenings are being completed, data is being recorded within a five-day time frame, and staff are keeping up with training requirements. Depending on the level of the agency they work in, supervisors may also manage financial processes like invoicing. Supervisors are required to perform monthly check-ins with ECECD to report on their programs.

Depending on their credentials, and with ECECD approval, supervisors may offer reflective supervision to the home visitors in their program. Reflective supervision is a professional development approach that involves regular collaborative reflection between a supervisor and individual home visitor on the thoughts, feelings, actions, and reactions evoked by working closely with young children and their families, with the goal of supporting the growth, competence, and emotional well-being of the home visitor. Supervisors will provide required field supervision for new staff and also once or twice a year for experienced staff.

Program Managers & Directors

A bachelor’s degree in early childhood education, social work, or a related field will open additional opportunities like program manager or director roles. Program managers oversee individual home visiting programs, while Directors manage centers that may offer a variety of services besides home visiting, including child care, PreK, and Head Start.

Program managers and directors are responsible for maintaining documentation, overseeing supervisors and staff, reporting, and financial processes for their programs. These roles also oversee continuous quality improvement (CQI) - a series of program standards that identify the following six desired outcomes for families in home visiting and assess room for improvement:

Babies are born healthy
- Children are nurtured by their parents and caregivers
- Children are physically and mentally healthy
- Children are ready for school
- Children and family are safe
- Families are connected to formal and informal supports in their community.

Program managers and directors are responsible for recruiting families and maintaining program enrollment and engagement. Depending on the size of their home visiting program, some program managers and directors also provide direct services to families.

Program managers and directors are expected to engage collaboratively with other programs, groups, and resources within their communities. They attend monthly and quarterly meetings with home visiting monitors and support team members.
    Home visitor Byrickson Henderson reads a book to a toddler in the home of one of his client families

    How Do I Know Home Visiting Is Right for Me?

    If you’re passionate about early childhood development, healthy family systems, and community collaboration, home visiting could be a great fit. However, here are a few things to keep in mind as you consider this career.

    If you want to spend most of your time working directly with infants and young children, home visiting might not be the best choice for you. Instead, you might be interested in another exciting career in child care, PreK, or Head Start. While home visitors work with families of young children, most of their time is spent assisting parents and caregivers in creating a healthy family environment where children can grow and thrive.
    Home visitors work with families from all economic backgrounds, cultures, and faiths. As a home visitor, you’ll become a trusted resource and cheerleader for the families you serve, and you’ll need patience, creativity, and a nonjudgmental perspective to offer the essential support that these families need.
    Because so much of a home visitor’s time is spent traveling to families and meeting at families’ homes, you’ll need a valid driver’s license and reliable vehicle to succeed in this career. Expect to spend quite a bit of time on the road - home visitors go wherever their families need them, including remote and rural communities. Luckily, you’ll be reimbursed at the state mileage rate for work-related travel, so you won’t need to worry about high gas bills.
    In early childhood fields like home visiting, there’s always something new to learn. To thrive in this career, you’ll need to have a passion for lifelong learning and professional development. While you don’t need a degree to start out in home visiting, home visitors are required to work towards professional certifications and educational goals that support their work.
      Apply For Home Visiting Positions in Your Community

      Career Stories

      Discover stories of real New Mexico professionals in home visiting.

      Home visitor Byrickson Henderson poses in a client’s living room

      Byrickson Henderson

      Home Visitor
      Farmington

      Read Byrickson’s Story

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