PIMS Resource Center

 
Best Practice Standards
updated 1/4/19

HFA Best Practice Standards

The 2018 Best Practice Standards took effect on January 1, 2018. PIMS is currently being updated to better address these standards.

For an overview of which PIMS reports address which standards, refer to the PIMS and Best Practice Standards Crosswalk (updated 1/7/19). The links in the summary table below provide more detailed instructions for addressing each individual standard with PIMS.

Note that it is ultimately each site's responsibility to review the Best Practice Standards and ensure that they are met. While PIMS reports tabulate much of the quantitative information required, some narrative interpretation is required for most standards.

Tip Sheets

Standard Topic Summary PIMS 8
BPS 2018
1 Initiate services prenatally or at birth BPS 1 updated 1/4/19

Key Service Dates
2 Use a standardized assessment tool to systematically identify families who are most in need of services. N/A
3 Offer services voluntarily and use positive, persistent outreach efforts to build family trust. BPS 3 updated 1/4/19
4 Offer services intensely (e.g., at least once a week) with well-defined criteria for increasing or decreasing intensity of service and over the long term (e.g., three to five years). BPS 4 updated 1/4/19
5 Services should be culturally sensitive such that staff understands, acknowledges, and respects cultural differences among families. BPS 5 updated 1/4/19
6 Services should focus on supporting the parent(s) as well as supporting parent-child interaction and child development. BPS 6 updated 1/17/19
7 At a minimum, all families should be linked to a medical provider to assure optimal health and development. Depending on the family’s needs, they may also be linked to additional services such as financial, food, and housing assistance programs, school readiness programs, child care, job training programs, family support centers, substance abuse treatment programs, and domestic violence shelters. BPS 7 updated 1/7/19
8 Services should be provided by staff with limited caseloads to assure that home visitors have an adequate amount of time to spend with each family to meet their unique and varying needs and to plan for future activities. BPS 8 updated 4/19/18
9 Service providers should be selected because of their personal characteristics, their willingness to work in or their experience working with culturally diverse communities, and their skills to do the job. N/A
10 Service providers receive intensive training specific to their role to understand the essential components of family assessment, home visiting and supervision. BPS 10 updated 4/13/18
11 Service providers should have a framework, based on education or experience, for handling the variety of experiences they may encounter when working with at-risk families. All service providers should receive basic training in areas such as cultural competency, reporting child abuse, determining the safety of the home, managing crisis situations, responding to mental health, substance abuse, and/or domestic violence issues, drug-exposed infants, and services in their community. BPS 11 updated 4/13/18
GA The program is governed and administered in accordance with principles of effective management and of ethical practice. N/A

 
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