Mothers and Babies Training and Technical Assistance

The purpose and scope of services for this grant is to continue to provide support to Illinois’ home visiting programs through training and technical assistance on the Mothers and Babies Course. The Mothers and Babies Course (MB Course) is an evidence-based, manualized postpartum depression prevention intervention that can be implemented individually, as a supplement to home visits, or as a group intervention. Since we began our collaboration with the Governor’s Office for Early Childhood Development in 2013, more than 80 Illinois Home Visiting (HV) programs, including over 300 supervisors and direct service staff, have been trained to implement the Mothers and Babies Course, either by our Northwestern University team or our Infant Mental Health Consultant colleagues. In FY20, we developed and shared a text-message based intervention, MB-TXT, to supplement MB implementation. With FY21 MIECHV support, we will continue to support Illinois home visitors and programs that received MB-TXT training and support in the previous year, who wish to maintain their access; we will also conduct outreach and provide training and technical support to additional IL HV programs and staff who express interest in using MB-TXT. In addition, we will work with videographers to record and produce MB intervention sessions between clients and home visitors to support training and implementation.