“Sit near the door. Make sure your car has plenty of gas. Park so you can get out. Don’t wear something that can be a choking hazard like a lanyard.” Macy Jones, the Head Start director for the Alexander County Schools in North Carolina rattles off a list of pointers she gives her staff before they begin their home visits each year. Jones has been concerned about keeping the 37 teachers, assistants and home advocates in her program safe on home visits since she assumed her position seven years ago.

In the past few years, her concerns about staff safety during home visits have increased as she has heard more reports of violent crime in the rural county. “Here we are in 2019, and we don’t know what we’re walking into, or when somebody may show up that came to do harm to somebody in the home. So I’m having conversations now that I never had to have in the ‘80s with folks.” Jones says.

Jones, who attended Head Start herself when she was a child and who has worked at Head Start for over three decades views home visits as critical to the success of both staff and students in the program. But without a full-scale training program and set of comprehensive safety procedures, she isn’t convinced her team should be required to visit the homes of their students. “Head Start really needs to start rethinking the whole home visit requirement,” she says, referencing the federal program that provides high-quality early childhood education to more than one million children from low-income families each year.

For now, Jones lets her staff decide whether to conduct home visits, emphasizing the power of these visits for students. “I tell them they can go somewhere else to meet the parents if they don’t feel safe visiting the family’s home. I say, ‘You don’t have to go...but just remember who doesn’t have an option—those babies we let off the bus every single day. They don’t have an option. So if you can do it, go to that home because those kids’ eyes light up whenever their teachers come see them at their home.’”

Why Conduct Home Visits?

The home visits conducted by Jones’ staff, which occur twice a year, are central to the Head Start model of serving two generations—both children and their families. The visits are mandated by Head Start and complement the work that teachers are doing in the classroom by providing an opportunity for teachers to speak informally with parents or other family members they may not routinely see.