Parents, providers urge Oregon lawmakers to expand home visiting as committee opens hearings on two bills

The Oregon Senate Committee on Early Childhood and Behavioral Health held an informational session on home visiting programs and opened public hearings on Senate Bill 420 and Senate Bill 1033, with parents, home visitors, researchers and lawmakers describing benefits of home visiting and urging expanded funding.

Senators heard parents who credited home visitors with stabilizing housing, connecting families to speech and behavioral therapy, and helping parents manage postpartum depression. "There is no doubt in my mind that having a home visitor has been the single most important and constant support in our life," said Mika Maggard, a Coos Bay parent who testified about her son born premature and drug affected.

Committee members heard research and program details showing home visiting is voluntary, offered by nurses, doulas, community health workers and other trained staff, and targets the prenatal period through the first years of life. Beth Green, director of Early Childhood and Family Support Research at Portland State University, summarized decades of research showing home visiting improves child development and parental well‑being. "Home visiting is unique in that it takes a two‑generational approach and works with both the parent and the child," Green said.

Why it matters: witnesses argued home visiting is an upstream prevention strategy that can reduce low birth weight, preterm birth, emergency room use and child welfare involvement,…