Document Type

Article

Publication Date

8-2025

Identifier

DOI: 10.1007/s10826-025-03137-5

Abstract

Previous studies have shown the positive impacts that home-visiting programs have on children, parents, and families. Despite the record of success from home-visiting programs, there can be high rates of attrition in such programs, and researchers have explored the impact of a variety of socio-demographic factors to understand attrition in home-visiting programs and to drive improvements in the delivery of service. This exploratory study examines how various factors impact participant completion and retention in the TIES program, a home-visiting program based at Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Missouri, that serves families impacted by substance use. Three hundred nineteen (N = 319) TIES participants from 2012 through 2022 are included in this study. We used statistical analysis to explore how demographic factors impact program completion and retention, as well as how the relationship between the TIES participant and their home visitor, measured by the Working Alliance Inventory Short Form (WAI-S), impacts program completion and retention. This study also examines the impact of participant engagement—measured using an internally developed and validated scale—on program completion and retention within the TIES initiative. Analyses found that demographic variables had no impact on program completion or retention, but, consistent with prior research, a stronger relationship with the home visitor was associated with greater odds of program completion and retention. Stronger participant engagement was also found to be associated with greater odds of program completion and retention.

Journal Title

Journal of Child and Family Studies

Volume

34

First Page

2114

Last Page

2125

Comments

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

Publisher's Link: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10826-025-03137-5

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