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. Method: 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. Conclusion: 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. Objectif: Cet article a pour but de passer en revue la littérature qui porte sur les programmes de visites à domicile où des bénévoles visitent des jeunes familles pour leur offrir un appui. L’article décrit les caractéristiques des bénévoles oeuvrant dans le contexte du programme Kempe Communtiy Caring et apporte des suggestions à savoir comment utiliser ce type d’appui familial. Méthode: On a recueilli des données sur 592 bénévoles et 1.144 familles qui ont bénéficié de leurs services. Plusieurs évaluations ont été menées pour tenter de mesurer le succès de leurs interventions. On a examiné ce qui motive les personnes à devenir bén évoles, la durée de leur engagement dans le programme et la mesure dans laquelle bén évoles et usagers sont semblables au niveau socio-économ