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This story originally appeared in MSPCC’s 2025 Impact Report. To read the full report, click here.
Healthy Families is a voluntary and free home-based family coaching program that supports young, first-time parents and helps them create stable, nurturing environments for their children. The program matches parents with trained professionals who visit families’ homes to provide support during pregnancy and the child’s first three years of life.
When then-fourteen-year-old Leticia “Letty” Demello received a phone call from a woman saying she was a Healthy Families Home Visitor, her reaction was less than enthusiastic. Just four days earlier, Letty had left the hospital after giving birth to a baby girl who would ultimately remain in the newborn intensive care unit for three weeks. Letty recalls, “I was a young teenager, I had just had a C-section, and my baby couldn’t come home with me. And on top of that, I had felt unsupported and discriminated against at the hospital.”
Despite her hesitations, Letty agreed to meet with Rose, the Home Visitor. “The first time she came to my house, we just sat in my bedroom and talked,” Letty says. “She was so down-to-earth, and by the end of our visit, I was smiling for the first time in close to a month.”
Letty with her daughter.
From that point on, Rose served as one of Letty’s greatest sources of support as she navigated life as a teenager with a new baby. When Letty had no reliable means of transportation, Rose drove her to her baby’s frequent medical appointments, helped her practice checking in with the doctor’s office receptionist, and stayed with her through each appointment. When her daughter’s health challenges resulted in Letty being homeschooled for a year and a half, Rose encouraged her to attend support groups and social events where she could meet other young parents. And once Letty turned sixteen, Rose connected her to a program that paid for her to obtain a driver’s license.
By the time Letty graduated from high school and from Healthy Families, she had a plan: with Rose’s support, she had obtained her Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) license, signed up for college courses, and received a job offer. But when she arrived at an interview for a Healthy Families advisory board position and learned the team was hiring a full-time Home Visitor, her plan changed. The Healthy Families team quickly recognized the value of Letty’s lived experience in the program, and before she knew it, Letty was working as a Home Visitor. “I couldn’t believe it when I was hired,” she says. “Once I started, I realized this was my dream job and social work was my calling. I’ve never looked back.”
Letty with the “All-Star” Award her team received at the annual Children’s Trust Celebration Day
While Healthy Families Home Visitors provide their clients with essential information around infant care and child development, Letty is quick to note that her role involves more than providing parenting education, and she emphasizes that her own experience in the program enables her to bring empathy and relatability to her role. “Many of the young parents I work with don’t feel like they have anybody in their corner. Because of that, it’s important for me to be their biggest fan and celebrate all their accomplishments, big and small. Rose doing that for me shaped me into the adult I am today.”
Letty has now been a Healthy Families Home Visitor for four years, and Rose’s support continues to make its mark. When Letty graduated from the program, Rose gave her a copy of the Dr. Seuss book Oh, the Places You’ll Go, inscribed with a personal message about their time working together. Letty says, “I cherish that book so much, and now, when my own participants graduate, I make each of them a collage that says “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” and include photos from our time together with a paragraph about how they’ve grown. Doing that feels like a salute to Rose and a reminder of how I carry the lessons she taught me in my own work.”
Healthy Families Massachusetts is a statewide home visiting program supported by the Children’s Trust. Funding through the Massachusetts Home Visiting Initiative provides important service enhancements and supports to our evidence-based home visiting programming.
