About Us

We empower families to thrive through home visiting and parent support.

Children's earliest experiences shape their lives. At Healthy Families Florida, we focus on relationships and family-centered practice, building trusting bonds with families to help them set and achieve their goals. Expertly trained home visitors help families mitigate life challenges, address trauma, and become the best parents they can be. Healthy Families is free and always voluntary.

Healthy Families Florida is proven to prevent abuse and neglect.

Healthy Families Florida (HFF) prevents abuse by empowering families to create safe, stable, nurturing homes where their children thrive. Ongoing evaluation of the program shows that:

• 99% of children participating in HFF are free of verified maltreatment during services,
• One year after completing the program 99% of children remain free of verified maltreatment, and
• Three years later, 95% continue to be free of verified maltreatment.

Healthy Families Florida strengthens families.

Last year, Healthy Families Florida's 38 community-based sites served 9,444 families and their 17,265 children with state funding and local contributions. Parents and children who participate in the program show positive outcomes in many domains, including family self-sufficiency, health, mental health and child development.

• 85% of participants improved their self-sufficiency by gaining employment, enrolling in job training, furthering their education, securing stable housing or obtaining a driver’s license
• 98% of children and participants were connected to a primary health care professional
• 87% of children up to date with immunizations at 24 months
• 91% of children received age-appropriate developmental screening
• 82% of participants who were low on one or more parenting inventory subscale showed improvement from baseline to six months

Healthy Families Florida is Prevention that saves lives and money.

Decades of research on Healthy Families (in Florida and nationally) shows evidence of effectiveness. Engaging families early promotes healthy child development, increases family stability, and avoids the high human and financial cost of adverse childhood experiences.

• Research shows that it costs approximately $105,131 annually to treat abuse, including costs for child welfare, hospitalization, special education, and juvenile justice. It costs $2,200 annually per child to PREVENT abuse with Healthy Families Florida. (Ounce of Prevention Fund of Florida HFF Cost Avoidance Study, 2018)
• Preterm birth and low birth weight cause considerable costs to families and our health care system. One study showed that HFF had significant impacts on increased gestation time and full-term births. (Palm Beach County, Healthy Beginnings Home Visitation Program Evaluation, February 2017)
• Rigorous evidence from 19 randomized control trials of Healthy Families America shows positive impacts in eight (8) domains, including positive parenting practices, improvement in child and maternal health, and improvement of economic self-sufficiency.

The Ounce of Prevention Fund of Florida administers Healthy Families Florida through service contracts with 35 community-based agencies in 67 counties (45 counties in their entirety and 22 counties in the highest-risk ZIP codes). The Ounce of Prevention Fund of Florida provides support to local implementing agencies through training, technical assistance, quality assurance, policy, data collection, and evaluation. Many Healthy Families Florida sites provide enhanced services including in-home mental health counseling, in-home behavioral health navigation services, or Plans of Safe Care for families with a substance-exposed infant. Locate a site near you by finding your city or county on our interactive map. Staff names, titles, and email addresses are available on our organizational chart.