Characteristics of volunteers and families in a neonatal home visitation project: the Kempe Community Caring Program.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this paper is to review literature related to home visitation support for new families using volunteer visitors and to describe characteristics of volunteers of the Kempe Community Caring Program, a home visitor support program for first time parents. Suggestions for effectively utilizing volunteers in family support programs are made.


METHODS
Program data was collected and reviewed on 592 volunteer home visitors and the 1,144 families they served. Several evaluations and assessments were performed in order to attempt to measure the success of the intervention. Motivation for volunteering, longevity with program, and the extent of sociodemographic match between visitor and client were reviewed and discussed.


RESULTS
Information on matched volunteer-client pairs was limited; however, speculations were made that neither motivation to participate nor sociodemographic match were critical factors in determining success of the intervention. Duration of volunteer participation was influenced by marital status, but not by age. Married volunteers stayed with the program significantly longer than unmarried volunteers. Low risk families demonstrated slightly improved confidence in parental function after receiving home visitation by a volunteer.


CONCLUSIONS
This program suggests that new mothers may benefit from receiving the services of a volunteer home visitor; specifically, their confidence as parents and ability to establish positive relationships show slight improvement. Likewise, volunteers and families felt satisfied with the supportive relationships generated. In addition, a volunteer profile emerged which may be beneficial to similar programs' recruiting efforts.
Hiatt
S W
SW
The C. Henry Kempe National Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect, Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Denver 80218, USA.
Michalek
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P
Younge
P
P
Miyoshi
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T
Fryer
E
E
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology; D003120:Colorado; D003152:Community Health Nursing; D005260:Female; D006701:Home Nursing / Q000523:psychology*; D006776:Hospitals, Pediatric; D006801:Humans; D007224:Infant Care; D007231:Infant, Newborn / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011247:Pregnancy; D012307:Risk Factors; D012944:Social Support; D014838:Volunteers / Q000523:psychology*