Hi‘ilei which means “to carry in the arms” in Hawaiian, embodies the nurturing and supportive nature of the services we offer to families through home visits and culturally grounded interventions.
The Hiʻilei program utilizes the Parents as Teachers (PAT) evidence-based home visiting model to provide comprehensive home visiting services for families living in Wai‘anae and Molokaʻi. The primary goals of the PAT model are to increase parent knowledge of early childhood development, improve parenting practices, provide early detection of developmental delays and health issues, prevent child abuse, and neglect, and enhance children’s school readiness and success.
Parent educators work diligently with families through an empathetic and unbiased lens to build strong trusting relationships, improve parenting behaviors, increase parent’s knowledge of early child development and child health and well-being.
The Center for Research-Practice Collaborations for Indigenous Home Visiting (CIRCLE-HV) was created to support research partnerships with home visiting programs that serve Indigenous children and families. As INPEACE’s Hi‘ilei program continues to look for opportunities to strengthen its services, we have partnered with CIRCLE-HV. We will join other home visiting programs to pursue research and evaluation as a priority topic through a cross-site study (CSS).
The study aims to model innovative cross-site research, enhance the quality and utility of research on Indigenous home visiting, center Indigenous epistemologies, and employ Indigenous methodologies to generate knowledge that supports home visiting programs in serving Indigenous families. Three potential CIRCLE-HV areas of study include: Indigenous Home Visiting Workforce Development, Alignment Between the Priorities and Values of Home Visiting and of Indigenous Communities, and The Role of Indigenous Home Visiting Programs Within the Broader Early Childhood System.
