A. The department shall provide statewide home visiting services using a standards-based program. The department shall adopt and promulgate rules by which the standards-based home visiting program shall operate.

B. The department shall fund only standards-based home visiting programs that include periodic home visits to improve the health, well-being and self-sufficiency of eligible families.

C. A home visiting program shall provide culturally and linguistically appropriate, face-to-face visits by nurses, social workers and other early childhood and health professionals or by trained and supervised lay workers.

D. A home visiting program shall do two or more of the following:

(1) improve prenatal, maternal, infant or child health outcomes, including reducing preterm births;

(2) promote positive parenting practices;

(3) build healthy parent and child relationships;

(4) enhance children's social-emotional and language development;

(5) support children's cognitive and physical development;

(6) improve the health of eligible families;

(7) provide resources and supports that may help to reduce child maltreatment and injury;

(8) increase children's readiness to succeed in school; and

(9) improve coordination of referrals for, and the provision of, other community resources and supports for eligible families.

E. The department shall work with the early learning advisory council and develop internal processes that provide for a greater ability to collaborate with other state agencies, local governments and private entities and share relevant home visiting data and information. The processes may include a uniform format for the collection of data relevant to each home visiting program.

F. When the department authorizes funds through payments, contracts or grants that are used for home visiting programs, it shall include language regarding home visiting in its funding agreement contract or grant that is consistent with the provisions of the Home Visiting Accountability Act.

G. The department and the providers of home visiting services, in consultation with one or more experts in home visiting program evaluation, shall:

(1) jointly develop an outcomes measurement plan to monitor outcomes for children and families receiving services through home visiting programs;

(2) develop indicators that measure each objective established pursuant to Subsection D of this section; and

(3) complete and submit the outcomes measurement plan by November 1, 2013 to the legislature, the governor and the early learning advisory council.

H. Beginning January 1, 2014 and annually thereafter, the department shall produce an annual outcomes report to the governor, the legislature and the early learning advisory council.

I. The annual outcomes report shall include:

(1) the goals and achieved outcomes of the home visiting system implemented pursuant to the Home Visiting Accountability Act; and

(2) data regarding:

(a) the cost per eligible family served;

(b) the number of eligible families served;

(c) demographic data on eligible families served;

(d) the duration of participation by eligible families in the program;

(e) the number and type of programs that the department has funded;

(f) any increases in school readiness, child development and literacy;

(g) decreases in child maltreatment or child abuse;

(h) any reductions in risky parental behavior;

(i) the percentage of children receiving regular well-child exams, as recommended by the American academy of pediatrics;

(j) the percentage of infants on schedule to be fully immunized by age two;

(k) the number of children that received an ages and stages questionnaire and what percent scored age appropriately in all developmental domains;

(l) the number of children identified with potential developmental delay and, of those, how many began services within two months of the screening; and

(m) the percentage of children receiving home visiting services who are enrolled in high-quality licensed child care programs.

History: Laws 2013, ch. 118, § 3.

Effective dates. — Laws 2013, ch. 118 contained no effective date provision, but, pursuant to N.M. Const., art. IV, § 23, was effective June 14, 2013, 90 days after the adjournment of the legislature.