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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
This chapter outlines the purpose and goals of the present research project,
which was a preliminary exploratory study into family home visiting programs that make
use of both volunteer and paid visitors. This chapter also provides a brief overview of
each of the following: the field of home visiting, the broader socio-political context in
which these home visiting programs operate, the historical relationship between social
work and home visiting, and my own experiences working in this field.
1.1 INTRODUCTION TO THE PRESENT STUDY
1.1.1 Why Research Mixed-Delivery Home Visiting Programs?
Since 1997, I have coordinated a home visiting program for families with young
children in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. This program was launched in 1995 with
volunteer home visitors only; in 2003, funding was secured to add a full-time
professional Family Support Worker to the team. This addition changed the program in
the ways we had hoped it would, and in ways that went beyond what we had
envisioned; at the same time, of course, it did not solve all of the challenges we faced.
These experiences, which are described in greater detail in Section 1.5, prompted me to
search for published literature on other programs with this structure. I wondered: Did
other programs have similar, or different, combinations of paid and volunteer home
visitors? Had they experienced similar benefits and challenges, or were their
experiences different?
I also have a keen interest in program development and the broader context of
service delivery – that is, how do programs and organizations develop? What forces
have an influence on their development, either positive or negative? Therefore, I
wondered whether other programs that had either only paid home visitors, or only
volunteer visitors, had considered expanding to have both types of visitors, and if so,
what factors had enabled or inhibited this plan.
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