The Southwestern Child Development Commission’s Family Nurse Partnership program provides services to first-time pregnant women in the western most seven counties in the mountains of North Carolina. The goal of the program is to achieve healthy pregnancies and healthy babies while helping the individual mothers achieve their life goals. In addition, all families within the Family Nurse Partnership program are eligible to have access to high quality daycare options so they may return to work or school.

Based out of a modest office in Sylva, North Carolina, this program serves not only first-time mothers during and through their pregnancies but also their children born of the pregnancy for the first two years. These counties have documented high incidences of drug use and large numbers of children living the foster care system with fewer hospitals and medical care providers than other areas in the state. Oftentimes, the people who live in the far western part of the state have fewer choices when trying to access medical care along with fewer transportation options available to do so. The Family Nurse Partnership helps these new mothers access appropriate healthcare by promoting the important of early and regular prenatal and postnatal care and helping them identify the resources available for all needs after delivery of their babies.

The CCME Foundation funds were used to assist with the operating expenses of the program. This included mileage and vehicle maintenance for the nurse home visitors. Some nurses travel as much/more than one hundred miles in a day. One nurse shared that she had driven two hundred miles the day before visiting with her clients. Nurse visitors have required educational needs and these funds were used to pay for this. The grant helped fund a new interpretation service for all seven counties served so the nurse home visitors are able to communicate with the Spanish speaking population (and others, if needed).

Supplies, such as infant scales, nursing equipment, sanitizing requirements, educational materials for the new mothers, and developmental toys and tools for the babies are just a few expenses that the grant helped to cover in this effort to have health pregnancies, deliveries, and babies. A nurse home visitor, Angie Parker shared a story about how she had noticed that one of her client’s babies was not reaching for toys or other items during a recent developmental screening. Because the young mother did not have any developmental equipment for her baby, Angie was able to bring a playmat and toys that hung over the playmat. By that evening, the baby was reaching and swatting at the toys, which she had never done before. This kind of story and many others like it show how such small, simple changes in a newborn’s daily life can affect and improve her development long-term.

To learn more about this amazing program in western North Carolina, please visit: https://www.swcdcinc.org/nurse-family-partnership.