CONTEXTUAL ISSUES FOR IMPLEMENTATION AND EVALUATION OF HOME-VISITATION PROGRAMS FOR AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE COMMUNITIES: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TRIBAL MATERNAL, INFANT, AND EARLY CHILDHOOD HOME VISITING PROGRAM.

Home-visiting programs have become a key component of evidence-based services for pregnant women, new mothers, their infants, and their families. When Congress authorized the Maternal Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program (MIECHV) in 2010, it set aside 3% of the $1.5 billion in funding to support home-visiting programs operated by tribes, Tribal MIECHV programs have been funded in 14 states and have served over 3,100 families, providing nearly 55,000 home visits to families at risk for poor child, maternal, and family outcomes. In this Introduction to the Special Issue of the Infant Mental Health Journal on the Tribal MIECHV initiative, we provide some key contexts of the work of the Tribal MIECHV grantees as well as an overview of the issues covered in the other articles.