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October 2026 Grantee Spotlight
Freeborn and Rice Counties
Freeborn and Rice counties have been collaborating in the delivery of family home visiting services using the Healthy Families America (HFA) evidence-based model since 2018. This collaboration at one time included seven additional counties in the southeast corner of the state, but in 2022, those additional counties shifted to implementation of the Maternal Early Childhood Sustained Home Visiting (MECSH) evidence-based model. The nine counties continue to work together as a vital source for support of family home visiting in the region, while Freeborn and Rice alone implement HFA.
Not all HFA programs operate out of local public health departments, but for Freeborn and Rice, this offers the benefit of having been woven together around their public health infrastructure well before they partnered on the implementation of HFA. Their shared vision and mission helped unify their outreach message and their long history in providing family home visiting services offered a solid foundation on which to build their HFA program.
While any HFA program could benefit from collaborative efforts, smaller agencies, agencies who offer multiple services, and those serving more sparsely populated geographic areas may experience the most benefit. In those agencies where staff wear many hats, sharing resources, responsibilities, and costs expands capacity for supporting model fidelity, creates opportunities for cross-agency shadowing or training. It also provides a larger peer network for home visitors and supervisors.
Healthy Families Southeast Minnesota has been selected to present a break-out session at the annual HFA Live! virtual conference in October. The session, “Counties and Agencies in Partnership: Making Multi-Agency HFA Sites Work,” will feature Rice and Freeborn County’s HFA program manager and supervisors sharing the successes and lessons learned in their long-term partnership delivering home visiting services to families. Krista Middlebrooks, Natalie Loock, and Fae Schumacker will share their experience with how collaboration improves services to families through enhancing each agencies’ capacity to support their staff.
If you are attending HFA Live!, be sure to join this group at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 28 to hear more! Also, please encourage any of the families you work with to attend HFA Live! The conference is free for families and features parent- and family-focused content, giving families the change to participate, be inspired, and deepen their HFA experience. Visit Parents at HFA LIVE to register.