Welcome to the Homeward House Toolkit
From Our Community to Yours
Homeward House is grounded in a simple truth: families and communities do better when unnecessary separations of infants and young children from their parents are prevented — and when both prevention and reunification efforts strengthen children’s stability, support parents’ recovery, and promote family healing.
This toolkit is an invitation to benefit from the experience of a seven-year multi-agency and community partnership in Snohomish County, Washington. It was guided by parents with lived experience and sustained by the staff, member agencies, and funders who shared our commitment to keeping families together. We’re glad to share it more widely. Use the modules to adapt the model to your community — and take it further than we did.
What you’ll find here is what we learned: the model, the tools, the insights, and an honest account of what we’d do differently, all distilled into practical guidance you can put to work.
To protect the privacy and dignity of the families we serve, photos of people are stock images intended to be representative of the people we support.
How to Use the Toolkit
Organized in three sections, the toolkit starts with the why before moving into the how. We recommend beginning with Section 1 to build a strong foundation, but the elements are designed to be flexible: move between them as your needs evolve and your context requires.
Each section contains a series of modules you can work through at your own pace. Every module is designed to be reviewed in about twenty to thirty minutes, enough to cover the essentials. Where appropriate, modules also include additional resources, downloads, and links when you want to go deeper.
Together, these sections offer a roadmap you can return to at any stage, whether you’re making the case, building the structure, running the program, or working to keep it going.
Our commitment to advancing racial equity and social justice
Throughout the toolkit, you’ll find invitations to reflect on racial equity and social justice. We encourage you to ask not only what works, but who it works for, who may still be left behind, and why. We offer these invitations as committed students of this work, not experts, and we hope you’ll evolve them further than we did. The strongest programs are built with families, not simply for them. When we listen to lived experience, confront inequities honestly, and share power with communities, we create conditions where more children and families can thrive.
We’re glad you’re here. We hope what we share will inspire confidence, strengthen your efforts, advance equity and dignity, and bring hope to the families you serve.
Snohomish County Homeward House Collaborative
Homeward House Toolkit
Table of Contents
Section 1 Modules: Making the Case
The mission of Homeward House is to nurture the vital parent-child bond in the face of crisis, treatment, and recovery. This first section of the Toolkit makes the case for it. It answers the question of why preventing unnecessary family separation of infants from their parents matters and why this model is a promising and sensible approach worthy of adoption. Whether you’re building internal support, making the case to funders, or grounding yourself in the program before diving in, start here.
- The Harm and Cost of Family Separation
- Falling Through The Cracks: How Families Get Left Behind
- Transforming Stigma into Support
- What Can We Do: The Homeward House Model
- What the Data Shows
- The Case for Investment
Section 2 Modules: Building Your Program
This section is about the preparation — everything that needs to be in place before your program opens its doors. It starts with the people and strengths already present in your community, then walks through the practical decisions: choosing a collaborative approach, building a budget and funding plan, hiring and training Parent Ally Mentors, filling key roles, and setting up the spaces and systems that make the work possible.
- Engage People Who Care
- Take Stock of Your Community’s Assets
- Choose Your Approach to Collaboration
- Build a Budget and Funding Plan
- Recruit and Train Parent Ally Mentors
- Fill Other Key Roles
- Establish a Family Visitation & Resource Center
- Integrate Infant Mental Health Services
- Embed Family Voice
- Set Up Systems and Processes
Section 3 Modules: Sustaining the Work
A program is only as strong as the people carrying it. This section covers the three things we found kept Homeward House steady once families were walking through the door: caring for a team doing emotionally demanding work, measuring a few things well rather than many things poorly, and drawing in interns, volunteers, and alumni who widen what a program can offer. None of this was in place on day one. We built it as we learned and offer it here as a head start.
- Maintain a Culture of Care
- Measure What Matters
- Interns, Volunteers, and Alumni