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Home Visitation Programs Celebrate Success in South Puget Sound

Olympia, WA  (May 3, 2005) – Home visits to new parents by nurses and other trained professionals are helping young families in Thurston County get a good start, and new studies show the programs have long-term benefits. 

Caroline Potts, a recipient of home visits, credits the nurse who has been coming to see her every two weeks since September 2004 with changing the smoking and eating habits of her whole family.   Potts, the single mother of a three-month old son, said, “Having an outside, objective view into the choices and problems I faced during this pregnancy gave me a sense of relief.”

Nurse-Family Partnership, a voluntary program run by Thurston County Public Health and Social Services Department, sends specially trained nurses to low-income, first time teenage mothers beginning early in pregnancy and continuing until the child’s second birthday.  Parents As Teachers, offered through Providence SoundHomeCare & Hospice is also a voluntary program for pregnant and parenting women. In both programs, home visiting clinicians provide support, education and counseling on health, behavioral, self-sufficiency and parenting issues.

Nurse-Family Partnership has delivered dramatic results nationwide.  Some of the results include 79% reduction in child abuse and neglect, 69% reduction in arrests of the mother and 30 fewer months of welfare use.  Results for children include a dramatic improvement in readiness to enter school and, as the children reach their teens, a 56% reduction in alcohol use and 56% fewer arrests.  Nurse-Family Partnership made national news last week in the April 25^th   issue of Newsweek Magazine.

“Structured home visitation is recognized as one of the nation’s most successful, life-changing, cost-effective strategies for preventing involvement in the criminal justice system, child abuse and other costly social ills,” noted Thurston County Commissioner Diane Oberquell.  In 2002, Oberquell spearheaded a Home Visitation Task Force that recommended implementing these two national model programs. 

The Parents as Teachers (PAT) Program is administered in Thurston, Mason and Lewis counties by the Maternal Child Health Division of Providence SoundHomeCare & Hospice.  Mary Brown, Division Manager, says that her staff is currently offering PAT services to almost 100 low-income pregnant or parenting women. 

Extensive research shows that PAT parents are more knowledgeable about child-rearing practices and child development, more confident in their parenting skills, engage in more language- and literacy-promoting behaviors with their children and are more involved in their children's schooling.  These parenting skills pay off.  PAT children at age 3 are more advanced than comparable children in language, problem solving and other cognitive abilities, and in social development. The also score higher on kindergarten readiness tests and on standardized measures of reading, math and language in first through fourth grades.

A recent cost-benefit analysis by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy (IPP) showed a public savings of more than $17,000 for each child served in Nurse-Family Partnership.  The IPP study also cited $800 in benefits for each participant in Parents As Teachers and $6,077 in average benefits for each participant in a home visitation program targeting at-risk mothers and children. 

There are currently 150 young mothers participating in these two proven home visitation programs in Thurston County (50 in NFP and 100 in PAT).  Both Providence SoundHomeCare & Hospice and Thurston County Public Health and Social Services Department are seeking funding to maintain and expand their programs to meet the need.  “These programs can change the future for multiple generations,” says Thurston County Superior Court Judge Paula Casey. “Giving these young women the skills, support and knowledge they need to become effective parents will impact generations to come.”

For more information about the Thurston County Nurse-Family Partnership program, please call Diana Rice at 786-5581 x 6985.   For more information about Parents As Teachers, contact Mary Brown at 493-4724.

Resources:

“Benefits and Costs of Prevention and Early Intervention Programs for Youth”  Steve Aos, Roxanne Lieb, Jim Mayfield, Marna Miller, Annie Pennucci, Washington State Institute for Public Policy, 2004

http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/rptfiles/04-07-3901.pdf

Parents As Teachers website:    http://www.parentsasteachers.org/researchevaluation.asp#top  Includes information on evaluations.

Nurse Family Partnership was featured in the April 25^th issue of NewsWeek magazine.  NewsWeek website :

Nurse Family Partnership website:  www.nursefamilypartnership.org     Includes data from 30 years of research on program outcomes.

Caroline Potts, 491-4794   (Nurse-Family Partnership client)