Art and Practice of Home Visiting

For more than a decade, The Art and Practice of Home Visiting has been a go‐to guide for effective, culturally sensitive home visits with young children and families. Now reframed as a textbook for a new generation of home visitors, this second edition includes student‐friendly features, downloadable course companion materials, and fresh content on timely topics.

Presenting a collaborative, family‐centered approach to home visiting, Cook and Sparks prepare preservice professionals to form respectful and productive partnerships with caregivers and help each unique family reach their specific goals. Future home visitors will get practical, in‐depth guidance on all the complex issues they'll face in their work with families and children, including implementing evidence‐based practice; providing trauma‐informed care; and addressing challenges with sleep, feeding, and behavior.

A foundational text for future professionals—and an ideal source of wisdom and guidance for in‐service practitioners—this book will help all home visitors master the art and practice of effective home visiting with today's diverse families.

WHAT'S NEW:

• New student-friendly features: Learning Outcomes and Read‐Reflect‐Discuss Questions in each chapter, case studies, chapter summaries, and a glossary
• Expanded focus on all home visitors working with children with and without disabilities
• New and updated content on critical topics, such as resolving barriers to successful home visits and working with culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse families
• Expanded table of contents for easy navigation
• Increased focus on family‐centered home visiting and the home visitor as a collaborative coach and partner for the family
• A complete package of downloadable companion materials for faculty

ONLINE COMPANION MATERIALS: Faculty members will easily integrate this book into their courses with the online companion materials, including a sample syllabus, test bank, and PowerPoint outlines.

TOPICS COVERED: history of home visiting • collaboration with diverse families • formal and informal assessment • evidence-based intervention • trauma-informed care and the pandemic • the structure of effective home visits • facilitation of caregiver-child relationships • family empowerment • interpreters and translators • cross-cultural conflicts • legal, ethical, and personal safety concerns • common challenges such as sleep, feeding, and behavior • different types of families, including military families, teenage parents, and immigrant families • children with specific disorders, such as autism, Down syndrome, and motor challenges

Dr. Cook earned her doctorate degree with an emphasis on developmental psychology and two related master of arts degrees from the University of California at Los Angeles. She focused her interest on young children with special needs while serving as Director of the Early Childhood Center at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville and the Child Development Center at Mount Saint Mary's College in Los Angeles. Daily involvement with families of children from highly diverse backgrounds convinced her of the importance of fully involving families in all aspects of their children's development.

More than 25 years ago, Dr. Cook recognized the value of providing practical training based on evidence-based practices designed to facilitate inclusion of young children with special needs in natural environments. To this end, she initiated the publication of the coauthored Adapting Early Childhood Curricula for Young Children with Special Needs (Prentice Hall, 2007). This pioneering text is now in its 7th edition. In addition, she is a co-author of Strategies for Including Children with Special Needs in Early Childhood Settings (Thomson Delmar Learning, 2000). She has directed several federal training grants that provide tuition assistance to prepare students to work with young children with special needs both in their homes and in center-based programs. Dr. Cook consults widely and presents often in the areas of family-professional relationships and strategies for effective inclusion.

While at Western Michigan University, Ms. Sparks spent a sabbatical year with the department of public health in Battle Creek, Michigan, doing home visits with public health nurses. More recently she was an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Early Childhood Education at Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in speech pathology and audiology from the University of Iowa, her Master of Arts degree also in speech pathology and audiology from Tulane University, New Orleans, and completed all but her dissertation in the Ph.D. program in the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

Ms. Sparks was a pioneer in early intervention, working with families, home visiting, and giving numerous presentations throughout the county. She has felt strongly that it is necessary to remain a practitioner in the field to experience real problems that early interventionists encounter. Until very recently, she served as a consultant to HOPE Homestart in San José, California, a home program for children with special needs between age 0 and 3. A fellow of the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Ms. Sparks has authored training modules and many articles and chapters on early intervention and the family in addition to a book on genetics in speech-language disorders and a book on the effects of prenatal substance abuse on speech and language.