Rooted in Care: Home Visiting Through the Eyes of New American Parents
03/27/25
The early years of parenting are full of milestones, questions, and big emotions. For families who are also adjusting to life in a new country, those early moments can feel even more overwhelming. Language barriers, unfamiliar systems, and limited support networks can make simple tasks feel daunting.
That’s where home visiting comes in. It offers encouragement, connection, and culturally respectful guidance—meeting families where they are and helping them thrive. For New American parents, it can be the bridge between feeling isolated and feeling supported.
Why Home Visiting and Early Intervention Matter
Home visiting and early intervention have been proven to help families in countless ways. Mothers are more likely to recognize—and in turn, treat — postpartum depression, and they are more likely to initiate breastfeeding and increase its duration. For children, the effects can be seen throughout their lives. Effective home visiting programs have resulted in better sight word reading fluency and higher scores on task orientation and social understanding. Home visiting has also been reported to improve social dynamics between families, with those who have participated reporting fewer problems at home—and, in turn, less stress for parents. In the long term, home visiting has been shown to foster healthy development in children, leading to higher lifetime earnings for both mothers and children who participate.
How Help Me Grow Supports Ohio Families
In Ohio, home visiting and early intervention are implemented through the statewide Help Me Grow program. Help Me Grow works with both pregnant individuals and families with babies and young children to ensure they have the support they need to promote their children’s growth and development. This work can include prenatal support, identifying developmental delays after a child is born, and offering tools and assistance to address concerns about a child’s development.
Home Visiting as a System of Care for New American Families
While home visiting and early intervention are helpful to many families, they can offer an especially meaningful support system for New American families. Around 5% of Ohioans were born outside of the United States, and about 7% of children ages 0–15 are foreign-born. These families often have limited support systems and, with English not typically being their first language, can face barriers to accessing services and building a life in a new country.
Being new to any country is a challenge. Most people’s daily lives revolve around knowing and understanding English. Whether using a government website, applying for jobs, or just going to the grocery store, it’s nearly impossible to navigate without English. On a recent home visit, a mother shared that she struggles to get people to understand her or take the time to listen to her because of her accent, especially when seeking medical services. On top of that, there’s adjusting to practices and customs that may be different from one’s home country. Small things—like not having a middle name, not being able to drive, or living in a city with less accessible public transportation—can be a shock when coming to the U.S. and can impede a family’s success over time.
Culturally Sensitive Support Through Home Visits
Over the years at Action for Children, we’ve found that home visiting is highly effective at alleviating some of the challenges New American parents and caregivers face—and at helping them build community. Through Ohio’s Help Me Grow program, Action for Children is proud to help these families navigate a new environment and provide responsive early childhood support that respects and integrates each family’s unique background and culture.
For Grace, a home visitor who started with Action for Children in 2024, making sure a family’s culture is respected and uplifted isn’t optional—it’s the main mode of operation.
“Culture is an important part of identity, and we want our visits to honor that. Through glimpses into their everyday lives and cultures, we become more mindful in our interactions with the families and better teachers for their children.”
– Grace Hanna, Help Me Grow Home Visitor at Action for Children
When doing home visits with New American families, Action for Children staff pay special attention to their approach and the tools and resources they use. Even though these families are in the United States, home visitors strive to celebrate their native culture and help them feel comfortable being themselves. Home visitors use professional video and phone translation services like Propio to communicate in the languages families are most comfortable with. Staff also work hard to provide books and resources that reflect each family’s culture and are available in their preferred language. In every home, home visitors make a point to learn about the family’s background to better understand where they come from and how to help each child celebrate their heritage.
Real Families, Real Impact
Ngozi, who is originally from Nigeria and had her youngest daughter while in the United States, recalls how Help Me Grow home visiting services helped her prepare for her daughter’s first Ohio winter and find nutritious meals for her baby. “The program helped me a lot,” she says. Even though she’s raised two other children, starting over at the infant stage felt difficult. Help Me Grow helped her get to where she wants to be as a parent—with advice and tools that respect her heritage and her goals for her daughter.
“Seeing my daughter grow has been the best thing about being in Help Me Grow. Watching her take those steps from when she was first born to crawling to not yet walking, to just starting to walk,” she shared. “I’ve learned a lot.”
– Ngozi, Help Me Grow Participant
Sara, whose family is from Nepal, shared her story with us as well. When she first started in the Help Me Grow program, she feared her son was behind in learning how to walk and talk. Hearing about other children meeting developmental milestones only made her more anxious. After starting home visits with Grace, she learned how to encourage her son’s development through simple activities like reading with him, talking to him, and singing to him.
Now, her son is a chatterbox—constantly on the move and rapidly learning new words and letters in both Nepali and English. Having a Home Visitor from Action for Children to support her has made a difference in her son’s development and her own growth as a mother.
“Before this program, I felt that I had to do everything, and now I can take breaks and take care of myself. I know more about community resources, and I’ve had help with figuring out my Medicaid bills or anything I needed. I feel like I’m able to figure things out now. I feel I am able to call if I need to,” she said.
– Sara, Help Me Grow Participant
Rooting Families in Care Through Home Visiting
Home visiting is for everyone—and so is Help Me Grow. Help Me Grow home visitors respect the many different backgrounds of the families they serve by offering personalized support tailored to each child’s unique needs. Every family brings its own traditions, languages, and experiences into a child’s upbringing, and our home visiting work creates an environment where all parents feel welcomed and heard. This commitment to understanding and inclusivity helps foster strong caregiver-child relationships and promotes healthy early childhood development.
At Action for Children, our vision is simple: we want children to thrive, and we want their caregivers to be empowered to help them do so. Through Help Me Grow, we hope to provide this support to every family who reaches out to us. To hear how Help Me Grow is impacting the New American families we serve, check out our At Home with Help Me Grow videos featuring the Nana and Swati families. You can learn more about Action for Children’s free Help Me Grow services here.
Author: Shea McHugh, Advocacy Associate at Action for Children
Contributor: Grace Hanna, Help Me Grow Home Visitor at Action for Children
We’d also like to thank Ngozi and Sara for sharing their experiences in Help Me Grow with us!
Action for Children’s Help Me Grow home visiting services are funded by the Ohio Department of Health. Action for Children is an affiliate of Healthy Families America. To help support our efforts to create a community where all families feel recognized, consider a monetary donation to help us continue our work. DONATE
About Action for Children: Action for Children is the local child care resource and referral agency for central Ohio, and is committed to assuring quality early learning experiences for all children. Our services focus on transforming the lives of children by supporting the everyday heroes who most influence our children’s early growth; care givers, educators, parents, and guardians. Learn More.