1 Introduction As individuals who have collectively worked in the field of early childhood edu- cation for more than eighty years, we are pleased to welcome you to The Home Visitor’s Manual. Who This Manual Is For In developing this book, we thought it important to identify all the groups of individuals who would find this manual a useful resource. What it eventually came down to was identifying all the people who visit homes where licensed child care takes place. As a result, we have chosen to use the term home visitor in a very literal way. The generic skills included in this book are designed to benefit anyone who visits a family child care home for the purposes of inspec- tion, monitoring, evaluation, support, accountability, technical assistance, or investigation. This book is for you if you visit family child programs in one of the follow- ing roles: Licenser• Social worker• Early intervention professional• Food program monitor• Family child care system representative• Head Start personnel• Child Development Associate (CDA) monitor• Accreditation and environmental rating scale observer• HVM_guts.indd 1 1/26/10 5:52:25 PM