FC New Orleans had their launch event on August 1, 2023! They held a press conference at the Greater New Orleans Foundation and invited New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell and District B council member, Lesli Harris to share their excitement with the Family Connects program.
Link to article online: https://www.nola.com/news/new-orleans-families-with-newborns-will-receive-free-at-home-visits-through-new-city-program/article_4c6fffb6-3149-11ee-8277-332fd5caf0f3.html
Family Connects International is being recognized by the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and AIM (Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health) for safe postpartum transitions to home! FCI was recognized as a change leader that: Utilize perinatal navigators, case managers, social workers, and postpartum home visiting programs where available to liaise with community resources and to ensure referral loops get closed.
Click here to download the Postpartum Discharge Transition Change Package (PDF).
Note: FCI is recognized on page 18 of the PDF.
BY SOPHIE KASAKOVE | Staff writer Aug 2, 2023
Families with newborns in New Orleans will have access to free at-home nurse visits beginning this fall, as the city works to address the persistent health challenges facing mothers and babies.
The program, a partnership between the city’s health department, Ochsner Baptist, and Touro Infirmary, will provide up to three in-home visits for infants born at the two hospitals. The check-ins will occur during the first 12 weeks of a baby’s life.
By working with the two Uptown hospitals, the program — called Family Connects New Orleans — will serve the majority of children born in the city. In 2020, 70% of infants were born at those facilities, according to the health department.
“Maternal and child health is one of the leading indicators of the overall health of a community,” Mayor LaToya Cantrell said in a statement. “In order for our city to thrive, we must continue to prioritize care and services for mothers and children. When they are safe, healthy, supported, and given proper resources to grow and learn, our communities succeed socially and economically.”
Before leaving the hospital, families will be scheduled for an initial home visit. Each visit will include health screenings for the mother and baby, as well as a family assessment for “environmental, behavioral, and social needs.”
The program will cost $1.5 million a year and is being paid for by the city with federal American Rescue Plan funds. It is currently slated to run for three years, but Mayor LaToya Cantrell said Wednesday that she hopes it will continue well beyond that.
New Orleans is one of about 40 cities nationwide to adopt the Family Connects model, pioneered by the nonprofit Family Connects International.
Louisiana has long struggled with high rates of maternal and infant mortality and remains stuck near the top of nationwide rankings.
Touro Infirmary, for one, was highlighted in 2019 for its unusually high rates of severe childbirth complications, which USA Today found to be higher than any other New Orleans hospital. At the time, hospital officials said they objected to the article’s use of billing data to look at rates of complications and failed to account for different rates of health vulnerabilities of patients between hospitals.
Hospital representatives did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment.
Most pregnancy-associated deaths in the state occur in the first six weeks after birth and the majority are preventable, city health officials say.
A recent study found that accidental overdoses and heart conditions ranked near the top of the list for causes of death of pregnant women in Louisiana.
The infant mortality rate also exceeded the national average in New Orleans between 2017 and 2019, with significantly higher rates among Black babies, according to the Louisiana Perinatal Mortality Review Committee report.
Dr. Jennifer Avegno, the city’s health director, recently appeared on “60 Minutes” to discuss the additional challenges to maternal health posed by recently enacted abortion bans. The new restrictions have led some Louisiana health care providers to fear that treatments for problematic pregnancies or miscarriages could be viewed as providing illegal abortions.
The new program will give the city a way to connect families with other services, said Cantrell.
“It allows us to build trust, get into that home and also triage any other issues… that may be happening in the home,” she said.
The National Governors Association’s 2023 Annual Meeting is being held in Atlantic City, New Jersey, from July 12th – July 14th. The Annual Meeting is an opportunity for Governors to share best practices and work together to solve the problems our states, and our nation, are facing. This year includes a session on Improving Infant and Maternal Health.
Family Connects is the only program called out by name in the Governor’s playbook developed by First Lady Murphy, First Lady of NJ and 2022-2023 Chair of the National Governors Association Spouses Program.
Click here to visit their website.
FCI is proud to announce that the Valhalla Foundation has awarded FCI a grant. The Valhalla Foundation has been committed to improving childhood readiness, among other significant causes, and acknowledges the impact that FCI has on communities and families in the States. FCI would like to thank the Valhalla Foundation for their generous support! With Valhalla’s support and organizations like Valhalla, FCI can continue to provide equitable support to newborns and their families nationwide.
FCI received a grant from Duke Endowment! The Duke Endowment has assisted people and communities in the Carolinas since 1924. This grant received from the place-based funder supports FCI’s leadership, providing quality assurance and sustainability for the North Carolina and South Carolina Family initiatives. This award is evidence of the tangible impact of FCI on the Carolinas and nation. FCI would like to thank Duke Endowment for their generous support!
By the Burke Foundation ● Apr 07, 2023
Welcome to Starting Early. Every other week, we spotlight new reports, useful news, engaging interviews with people doing important work, and interesting takes on maternal health and early childhood development issues.
Having a new baby is a huge life transition. Every family needs support during this time. Home visiting is one of the best ways to do so, by pairing expectant and new parents with a designated support person – a nurse, social worker, or early childhood specialist — who lifts up the innate wisdom of each family and offers individualized, strengths-based support.
In the news: Last December, Congress reauthorized the Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program and doubled its funding – gradually increasing it to $800 million. MIECHV supports 20 evidence-based home visiting models.
The partnership between families and home visitors, built on a foundation of trust, supports healthy parent-child relationships, and encourages positive family health, development and overall well-being. All of these factors ultimately lay a strong foundation for a child’s health and success, so with this latest win, more children will have the opportunity to thrive. — Kelly Woodlock, Start Early’s vice president, national home visiting
In 2021, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed legislation offering universal newborn home visiting to all families – which means that every parent in the state with a new baby will receive one free nurse home visit.
Read on and click the links to go deeper.
Home visiting is free, voluntary, and provided in the family’s home or another location of their choice. Participating families are more likely to:
Home visiting programs meet families where they are through a variety of approaches from clinicians to early childhood specialists. Here are a few examples:
Why it matters: The “fourth trimester”— the time right after giving birth — is a transformative period. Home visiting provides critical support for babies and birthing people, who don’t always get the attention they need post-birth.
Yes, but: Lots of innovative, peer-to-peer programs don’t make the list for federal funding and fathers are often left out. There is more to be done to comprehensively serve families.
Family Connects Mercer County nurses.
Since 2021, the Burke Foundation, New Jersey Department of Children and Families, Trenton Health Team, and the Central Jersey Family Health Consortium have partnered on the first universal newborn home visiting pilot in New Jersey. Offering at least one free visit to all families who deliver at Capital Health Medical Center, the pilot uses the Family Connects model, where nurses provide supportive guidance, answer questions about newborn care, and connect families to community resources.
Offering home visits to every family can reduce the stigma associated with existing referral-based home visiting programs.
Families deeply appreciate their home visits with Family Connects Mercer County, sharing:
What’s next: New Jersey starts rolling out the expansion of universal newborn home visiting later this year. Partnering with the New Jersey Department of Children and Families, the Burke Foundation is centering parent voices in the rollout and bolstering the nursing workforce to help all New Jersey families thrive.
Essence Sutherland, nurse manager for Family Connects Mercer County
We talked with Essence Sutherland, nurse manager for Family Connects Mercer County. A nurse for over 13 years, she became passionate about home visiting while working for the Nurse-Family Partnership. Previously, Essence practiced midwifery. Here are highlights from our conversation:
What does a Family Connects home visit look like?
Family Connects home visiting provides short-term compassionate, trauma-informed, non-judgmental care coupled with connections to community support and resources. Nurses see clients 2 to 3 weeks postpartum, mostly in clients’ homes, though telehealth is an option. Nurses do an in-depth maternal and child health assessment — a full “head to toe” of mother and baby. There’s also a series of screens, including for depression and partner violence, and one for substance abuse. We talk about SIDS prevention, safe sleep, and what to do if the baby experiences colic. And we talk a lot about parent and child behaviors: how to act around your child, how to recognize baby cues. The goal is to increase positive parenting behavior and enhance the parent-child relationship.
One of the most important parts of the visit is connecting clients with resources, hence the name “Family Connects.” We provide referrals during the visit, then follow up a week later.
What barriers prevent people from having a home visit? Have you faced barriers to implementing the program?
For us, one barrier was getting word out about our program. We recently held a meeting with invited community partners in Mercer County to help promote the program. Everybody should be on the same page in recognizing the goals and benefits of home visits — to better serve clients and advance maternal and child health.
When we started the visits, we didn’t anticipate the many undocumented clients that would enroll and need a variety of resources. We help connect them to health insurance, employment resources, and child care services.
How do nurses develop clients’ trust?
Family Connects has a diverse team of nurses from the community who recognize the issues clients face. For example, our three bilingual, Spanish-speaking nurses connect with and relate to our clients on a totally different level. One was a community health worker before she was inspired to attend nursing school. Speaking to clients in their language, in a way they understand, opens the door to trust.
Many in the BIPOC community distrust the medical system because of the history of experimentation in Black and Brown communities. Having someone come to your home — someone that looks like you and who recognizes the struggle — opens a window for trust as well.
Home visiting gives you the opportunity to meet the client where they’re at because the client is the expert on their own life.
Learn about upcoming events, new funding opportunities, and jobs in maternal and infant health and early childhood:
What is needed is a rock-solid moral and financial commitment by elected officials in Illinois to continue to support public health. That includes pre- and post-natal care.
I was pleasantly surprised by a Chicago Med episode earlier this year that highlighted #FamilyConnectsChi, a program that was piloted at Rush Medical Center. The scene opens with an indignant physician demanding funding for this program, which provides home visits for mothers and babies during the critical first six weeks postpartum.
Maternal mortality in Illinois emerged as a serious concern in 2018, with the inaugural release of the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Report.
Even though I am a maternal-child and community health specialist, I was astounded by the statewide trends in maternal and pregnancy-related deaths. Non-Hispanic Black women experienced six times the risk of death compared to their white counterparts. Even accounting for chronic health conditions like obesity, nearly three in four pregnancy-related deaths (72%) were deemed preventable. In an updated report in 2021, four in five pregnancy-related deaths (80%) were deemed preventable.
To address the problems, IDPH recommendations included expanding home visiting programs, especially early in the postpartum period, which led to the adoption of the Family Connects International program in Chicago.
Home visiting has been proven to be effective for nearly half a century, with significant benefits to the health and lives of first-time moms and their children who are affected by social and economic inequality. The return on investment is significant: For every dollar spent on these efforts, at least $2 are saved on future spending.
The adoption of home visiting programs could be a powerful model for other preventative efforts — for example, programs to address chronic health issues like diabetes, heart disease, etc. — that could improve public health overall.
To be sure, this is not news. But better access to primary health care would improve health outcomes for cardiovascular disease, the No. 1 killer of people in this country, and the myriad other health conditions that plague our country. As many of these deaths arising from these conditions are preventable, we must ask: Why are we not committed to preventing them?
The answer? Money. Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady stresses the need for a “more sensible, sustainable approach to promoting and protecting the nation’s health.”
Yet our public health infrastructure is chronically underfunded. We all witnessed the outcome during the COVID-19 pandemic. People without access to care, and those with chronic health conditions, fared the worst.
The federal government’s emergency pandemic funding was a vital Band-Aid but ultimately represents a reactionary, stop-gap approach.
What is needed instead is a rock-solid moral and financial commitment by elected officials in Illinois to continue to support public health efforts, including monitoring and prevention of infectious and chronic diseases, pre- and post-natal care, and the promotion of behavioral health.
COVID-19 showed us our communities’ best and worst. For clinicians dedicated to public health, the pandemic provided an urgent and unique opportunity to put infrastructure into place to address the health needs of the general population.
I’m proud Illinois is leading the way. In December 2022, Illinois was the first to be awarded $86 million in Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funding for public health infrastructure, with an additional $28 million awarded to the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH). This award will support ongoing programs, including Family Connects, and address health disparities.
As Chicago awaits a new mayoral administration, it is imperative this issue rises to the top of the political agenda. We have an extraordinary opportunity to build on our collective experience and advocate for the development of Health in All Policies (HiAP), to integrate health considerations into all of our policymaking.
We’d frankly be foolish to squander the opportunity to support a healthier city and become a model for the nation.
Yasmin Cavenagh, DNP, MPH, RN, is an assistant professor in the department of Women, Children and Family Nursing at Rush University and holds a faculty practice role in Family Connects. Cavenagh is a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project.
