You may be interested in this report on “What Works for Home Visiting Programs” released this summer from Child Trends, a US research center that studies children at all stages of development.
Home visiting is an approach to service delivery that often offers a combination of supports and services. This review synthesizes the findings from 66 rigorous evaluations of programs with a home visiting component and finds that overall, 32 programs had positive impacts on child outcomes. They provide detailed notes measuring the effectiveness of each program in ten outcome areas, including substance use, parenting skills, parent-child relationship and reproductive health.
The characteristics of an effective home visiting program differed depending on the age group being targeted, the duration and intensity of services, and the type of home visitor providing the services. Overall, 32 programs had positive impacts on at least one child outcome, 23 had mixed reviews, and 11 were not proven to work.
The report can be downloaded from the Child Trends web site.
Reference: Kahn, J. and Moore, K.A. (2010). What Works for Home Visiting Programs: Lessons from Experimental Evaluations of Programs and Interventions. Child Trends Fact Sheet, Publication # 2010-17. URL: http://www.childtrends.org/Files//Child_Trends-2010_7_1_FS_WWHomeVisitpdf.pdf
Girls, Women, Alcohol, and Pregnancy 
[…] women can be successful in preventing FASD (see, for example, earlier posts here and here and here and here). It’s great to see the program expand to address alcohol use in pregnancy and to […]