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 hom e visitation support for new families using volunteer visitors and to descr ibe characteristics of volunteers of the Kempe Community Caring Program, a home visitor support program for first time parents. Suggestions for effect ively utilizing volunteers in family support programs are made. Method: Program data was collected and reviewed on 592 volunteer home visit ors and the 1,141 families they served. Several evaluations and assessments were performed in order to attempt to measure the success of the intervent ion. Motivation for volunteering, longevity with program, and the extent of sociodemographic match between visitor and client were reviewed and discus sed. Results: Information on matched volunteer-client pairs was limited; however , speculations were made that neither motivation to participate nor sociode mographic match were critical factors in determining success of the interve ntion. 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 i mproved confidence in parental function after receiving home visitation by a volunteer. Conclusion: This program suggests that new mothers may benefit from receivi ng the services of a volunteer home visitor; specifically, their confidence as parents and ability to establish positive relationships show slight imp rovement. Likewise, volunteers and families felt satisfied with the support ive relationships generated. In addition, a volunteer profile emerged which may be beneficial to similar programs' recruiting efforts. (C) 1999 Elsevi er Science Ltd.