Children’s Mental Health Project Pilot

Family Housing Fund’s Visible Child Initiative created the Children’s Mental Health Project pilot to address trauma, teach positive parenting skills, and enhance the social emotional well-being of homeless children through services paid for by Minnesota Medical Assistance programs. The pilot provided access to early childhood intervention and mental health services in supportive housing sites across the Twin Cities. 

This program report, prepared by Wilder Research, evaluates the pilot program and recommends building a strong pool of early childhood mental health clinicians of color and increasing medical reimbursement rates for early childhood mental health services. The majority of parents surveyed reported that they saw positive changes in their children’s behavior since participating in the program. Supportive housing staff reported that the change in parent behavior, as a result of the children’s mental health services, had the largest effect on improving children’s behavior. Through this pilot, staff and clinicians reported that parents gained confidence in parenting, improved their understanding of early childhood development, felt reduced stigma for mental health services, and expanded their family’s engagement in the community.

While Family Housing Fund no longer works on the Visible Child Initiative, this pilot laid groundwork for embedding children’s mental health services within affordable housing across the region. 

Read the Executive Summary.

Interested in children’s health and housing? Take a look at this fact sheet.