Black mother looking at their newborn child

Leadership Pathways for Home Visitors of Color

The Leadership Pathways project elevates the voices of BIPOC home visitors and provides insights into how the home visiting field can support leadership pathways for home visitors of color.

Home visiting organizations across the nation are embedding diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) into their values and mission statements. Despite these efforts, the home visiting field still struggles to prioritize nurturing leadership among Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) professionals, including learning about the circumstances, experiences, and structures that influence BIPOC home visitor career pathways and leadership development.

In November 2022, Start Early launched a national field engagement, Leadership Pathways for Home Visitors of Color: An Exploration. The project centered the voices and experiences of home visitors of color to define leadership within the home visiting field and to determine a vision and needed supports for developing and sustaining leadership pathways. The expertise of home visitors involved in the project also informed a series of recommendations around upstream system changes aimed at addressing leadership and advancement for this vital component of the workforce.

Key Findings

This project generated several deliverables. The main article, Leadership Pathways for Home Visitors of Color: An Exploration, provides an overview of the project along with key findings and recommendations for policymakers, funders, state systems, and programs. Key findings from the field engagement include:

  • A definition of leadership from the perspective of BIPOC home visitors
  • Description of key barriers to staying and advancing in the field faced by BIPOC home visitors
  • Recommendations for supporting and sustaining leadership and advancement for BIPOC home visitors

Two BIPOC home visitors, Clare Williamson (Home Visitor/Parent Educator, Georgetown University Parent Support Program) and Claudette Kabera (Family Case Manager, Community of Hope) served as project leaders. In addition to providing leadership and guidance on the overall project, Clare and Claudette shared their personal reflections and experiences, which were captured in two white papers and a blog post:

  • In Voices from the Field: Moving from Conversation to Demonstration, Claudette and Clare share their insights on actionable ways across the home visiting field to support leadership pathways for home visitors of color.
  • In Voices from the Field: Supportive Environments for BIPOC Leadership Growth, they discuss what is needed for home visiting organizations to promote and sustain leadership for home visitors of color.

Research & Evaluation Teams & Collaborators

Funders

Start Early is grateful for the Pritzker Children’s Initiative for its investment and partnership that allowed for this project to happen.