The federal Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program supports home visiting services for families with young children who reside in communities that have concentrations of poor child health and other risk indicators. Home visits are conducted by nurses, mental health clinicians, social workers, or paraprofessionals with specialized training. Generally, they visit the homes of eligible families on a regular basis (e.g., weekly or monthly) over an extended period (e.g., six months or longer) to provide support to caregivers and children, such as guidance on creating a positive home environment and referrals to community resources. Families participate on a voluntary basis. Research on the efficacy of home visiting has shown that some models can help improve selected child and family outcomes, such as reducing child abuse. In FY2015, the MIECHV program supported 145,561 individual parents and children and conducted 912,119 home visits. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act established the MIECHV program under Section 511 of the Social Security Act in March 2010. The program is jointly administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS's) Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). Congress directly appropriated five years of mandatory funding for the program in the MIECHV authorizing statute: $100 million for FY2010; $250 million for FY2011; $350 million for FY2012; and $400 million for each of FY2013 and FY2014. (The funds in FY2013, FY2014, and FY2017 were subject to sequestration.) The statute has twice been amended to appropriate $400 million for each of FY2015, FY2016, and FY2017. MIECHV funding is provided primarily to states and territories to administer home visiting programs, and funds are awarded on both a formula and a competitive basis. The law requires that HHS reserve 3% of the annual appropriation for Indian tribal entities, and funding is provided to tribes on a competitive basis to carry out home visiting services. Another 3% is to be reserved for training, technical assistance, and evaluations. States, territories, and tribes must carry out their home visiting programs as specified in the law. Among other requirements, jurisdictions had to conduct needs assessments to identify communities with concentrations of poor infant health and other negative outcomes for children and families; the availability and use of home visiting services; and the capacity for providing substance abuse treatment and counseling in the jurisdiction. Under the program, these jurisdictions are required to achieve gains in four of six "benchmark" (or outcome) areas pertaining to family well-being and coordination of community resources. The majority of annual funding (a minimum of 75%) for jurisdictions that administer home visiting programs must be used to support a program model that has shown sufficient evidence of effectiveness. The remaining 25% of funds may be used to implement models that have promise of effectiveness. HHS has established criteria for determining whether home visiting models are effective and reviews home visiting models on an ongoing basis via the Home Visiting Evidence of Effectiveness (HomVEE) project. The project has determined that 18 models are evidence-based. Generally, these models have shown impacts in one or more outcomes in maternal and child health; early childhood social, emotional, and cognitive development; family/parent functioning; and links to other resources. In FY2016, jurisdictions had implemented 10 of the 17 models using MIECHV funding: Child First, Early Head Start-Home Visiting (EHS-HV), Family Check-Up (FCU), Family Spirit, Health Access Nurturing Development Services (HANDS) Program, Healthy Families America (HFA), Home Instruction for Parents of Preschool Youngsters (HIPPY), Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), Parents as Teachers (PAT), and SafeCare Augmented.