New funding for in-home programs that connect families with parenting and child development support is expanding into 19 rural Michigan counties concentrated in northern Michigan and the Upper Peninsula.
The federally-funded program, known as the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, received $13 million last week, the largest funding increase in the program's history.
The investment will allow home visiting programs funded by the program to serve over 200 additional families, state officials estimate. Following a state needs assessment, the funding will support Michigan families who have been impacted by substance abuse disorders and the child welfare system, said Tiffany Kostelec, who manages the home visiting unit at the Michigan Department
of Health and Human Services.
Available federal funds for the program have nearly doubled in Michigan since 2022, which is when Congress reauthorized the program and included a federal match to ensure funding would increase each year until the program will need reauthorization in September 2027. In a press release announcing the investment, the Trump administration voiced support for home visiting services.
"Home visiting is a key pillar of the Trump Administration’s work to Make America Healthy Again. When children receive the support they need early in life, we’re promoting their development and laying the foundation for better health throughout their lives," the release reads.
What does home visiting look like in Michigan?
The Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program funds four evidence-based home visiting models in Michigan, said Kostelec. These include: Early Head Start, Health Families America, Nurse-Family Partnership and Parents as Teachers.
Each home visiting program is voluntary and serves different needs for parents either about to have a baby or in the early childhood phase of parenting. This could look like a nurse visiting to monitor a woman's postpartum health or a child development expert visiting to help parents learn about their child's developmental milestones or screen for delays.
The four programs funded by the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program fit into a broader home visiting landscape in Michigan which includes a total of around eight different models that are funded through different federal and state funding streams, said Kostelec.
In 2025, over 21,000 families across Michigan were served by at least one of these home visiting models, according to a state report. All 83 counties in Michigan currently have at least one of the home visiting programs actively operating.
There's not enough funding to have every home visiting model available in every county in Michigan, said Kostelec, but the different home visiting programs across the state coordinate to put additional funds, like those recently doled out to the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting Program, where they're most needed.
"So that families have as much choice as possible," she said.
How do new federal funds impact Michigan's families?
Prior to this most recent investment, the program's funding was focused on the lower counties in Michigan like Saginaw, Ingham, Wayne, Berrien, Kent and Oakland, said Kostelec. This is because family needs assessments carried out by MDHHS to determine where the federal home visiting funding should go weighed population density more heavily than other factors.
Changing these needs assessments to prioritize other factors when looking at families who might benefit from home visiting meant to prevent family and child challenges before they become crises, allowed for this investment in rural counties, said Kostelec.
"We knew we had data showing that we had populations across northern Michigan and the U.P. impacted by the child welfare system and substance use and we wanted to make sure we were putting MIEHCV there," said Kostelec.
For most home visiting programs, interested families don't need a referral and can find options near them at mihomevisiting.com.
Beki San Martin is a fellow at the Detroit Free Press who covers childcare, early childhood education and other issues that affect the lives of children ages 5 and under and their families in metro Detroit and across Michigan. Contact her at rsanmartin@freepress.com.
This fellowship was founded with support from the Bainum Family Foundation. The Free Press retains editorial control of this work.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Federal investment expands home visiting services across rural Michigan
