HealthNet’s Healthy Families Program is part of a national program, Healthy Families America, and we must show adherence to HFA Best Practice Standards in order to earn our national accreditation.  Healthy Families America (HFA) is rooted in the belief that early, nurturing relationships are the foundation for life-long, healthy development. Healthy Families delivers home visits to overburdened families, to help parents forge a strong bond with their child despite challenges such as single parenthood, low income, depression that put child at risk for adverse childhood experiences, including abuse and neglect.

HFA reports rigorous evidence from 12 publications of multiple randomized control trials with impact in the following six domains.

• Family economic self-sufficiency:  The program helps parents find the motivation and resources to further their education.
• Maternal and newborn health:   Rigorous studies of HFA sites report numerous health benefits for both mothers and babies.  More parents reduced their alcohol use, children have better access to health care, and more completed well child visits.
• Prevention of child injuries, including maltreatment:  HFA studies show 17 significant benefits in this area, including reduced child maltreatment, physical punishment, yelling and improved use of non-violent discipline based on parents’ self-reports.
• School readiness:   Rigorous studies report improvements in children’s cognitive development at one and two years.
• Reduction in crime or domestic violence:  Reducing domestic violence is particularly challenging but crucial due to its close link to child maltreatment and other negative outcomes for children and families.
• Linkages and referrals:  Many of the families typically exhibit more needs than a single program can address.  The programs use key strategies to strengthen their connection and collaborate with many community services to link families to needed services.

HealthNet’s Healthy Families Program serves approximately 1,400 families annually.  Families start the program receiving weekly home visits and they can participate in the program until the child reaches three years of age.  Our dedicated staff of home visitors completed 12,593 home visits last year and made 3,570 referrals to community services.

Healthy Families America’s new tagline is “Great Childhoods Begin at Home”.   My personal favorite is a quote from the recently retired President of Prevent Child Abuse America, and it is “great childhoods for everyone”.  We think that it sends a wonderful message to patients that HealthNet really cares about their health and well-being, so much that they send someone to visit them in the privacy of their own home to assist them with any needs and to provide parenting and child development information for FREE.

For more information about HealthNet’s Healthy Families Program, please click here.

Post by Denise Kaspar

As parents, we sometimes are so busy taking care of our children that we lose track of some of the details of their lives.

Take 5 minutes and test yourself with this 16-question quiz recommended by our Better Indy Babies and Healthy Families staff. It will help you to see if you are having enough conversations, spending enough time, and showing enough interest to share in your child’s life each day. A parent needs to know his or her child better than anyone else in the world!

1. If your child could paint his room any color, what would it be?
2. What does your child want to be when he or she grows up?
3. Who is your child’s best friend?
4. Does your child think he or she is too big or small for his age?
5. What does your child think others think about him?
6. What does your child like best about school? Why?
7. What does your child dislike about school? Why?
8. Who outside your family has influenced your child the most?
9. Who is your child’s hero?
10. How does your child feel about you?
11. What would your child change about his family?
12. Does your child think you are fair?
13. If your child had $5 today, what would he or she buy?
14. What is your child’s favorite toy?
15. What would your child change about you?
16. If asked, “What do you do well?” what would your child say?

Find a time to sit down with your child, check your answers and see how well you did!

Helping Vulnerable Kids and Families Succeed

ALL parents need reminders from time to time on how to be the best mom or dad they can be for their kids. HealthNet’s Better Indy Babies and Healthy Families teams work with at-risk Indy parents during the critical early years of their children’s lives. They help increase parent knowledge of early childhood development, improve parenting practices, provide early detection of developmental delays and health issues, prevent child abuse and neglect and increase children’s school readiness.  Kudos to these programs for making Indy a healthier place for children!

For several years we beat the streets in the inner city surrounding our health centers,  reaching out to pregnant women and their families and going into neighborhoods that others would not want to be caught dead in.   Every day over the years we have helped thousands and thousands of families.

We have helped make healthier babies and healthier families. 

During these long years, there were many families that we would visit that really needed more intensive services that we were not able to provide, particularly those families with unwanted pregnancies that were having difficulty bonding with their babies and families that were hurting in many ways.   We called other agencies to try to get intensive services for families to improve family functioning and were told that they only accepted referrals from Child Protective Services.

Basically,  a child had to be hurt or neglected in order to receive help and many families were hungry for this help – to parent differently than they were parented. 

Then, there was an answer to our prayers. 
Healthy Families America came to Indiana! 
We were the only agency in our fine city that wanted  to prevent child abuse and neglect  as a primary focus.  We applied and received $45,000 to start, and over the next several  years, we received additional funding.  Although the joy of growing this program was not as intense as BIBs, that endured  months and months of serious growing pains, it was and still is very exciting.

I believe that there is no job more important than BIBs and Healthy Families.   This is because it all starts with the bond during the pregnancy and after the birth between the parent and their child, born or unborn.   This bond has far-reaching implications for determining a child’s success in school, preventing teen pregnancy, reducing juvenile delinquency, and a number of other childhood outcomes that can predict success as an adult.

A supervisor once told me that she found it difficult to describe what our programs did, and I said -

“That’s easy; we save lives” maybe not in the sense of actual life and death but  quality of life.

We are a village, HealthNet, Better Indy Babies and Healthy Families.  We ask you to join us in our cause of helping to make sure that babies are born healthy and that children are raised in safe and nurturing environments.

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To learn more about he BIBs/HF Takeover, click here.
Or you can join in on our week-long baby shower to benefit Better Indy Babies & Healthy Families participants!

I am so incredibly proud to work with these programs and with the home visitors, supervisors and support staff.

Twenty years ago, I heard about the Better Indy Babies program getting started and thought to myself,  “this is my dream job”.   I am forever indebted to Vicki Timm, who was the Director of Community Oriented Care at HealthNet at that time, for giving me the opportunity to  serve families and children, in what I believe has been my purpose in life, besides being the mother to my daughters.

As you can see by what some of the other staff members have said, this is not just a job and a calling to many.  I was very proud when some peer reviewers visited our site several years ago and said to me, in the first few hours of a three- day visit, that they knew within a few minutes of meeting the staff that this was not just a job for them.

Better Indy Babies has been like my baby that has grown into a young adult.

Its development has not been without challenges,  but it still remains strong and extremely effective in helping improve birth outcomes.  Positive birth outcomes are foremost in the minds of our dedicated and caring team of Nurse Midwives at HealthNet.  The infant mortality rate, that was so high in the 1980s, is still a complex problem caused by a myriad of social issues still present in the neighborhoods that we serve.   I am extremely thankful that HealthNet is still proud to be able to present BIBs to our patients as an integral part of the OB patients’ care.

We tell the participants that  we come to your home to offer education and support,  because we really care about you and your family, and we really care about the health of your unborn baby.

HealthNet really does
GIVE A CARE!

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Stay tuned for Part 2 which will be posted tomorrow morning.  An easy way to be alerted is to enter you email address in the right-hand column to subscribe to our blog and get posts sent straight to your inbox!
To learn more about Better Indy Babies & Healthy Families along with what has gone on during the BIBs/HF Takeover, click here.

I’ve been with Healthy Families for a little over seven years now.  Along the journey, I’ve been in nearly a thousand homes and have supervised both assessment workers and long-term home visitors.  I’ve spent countless hours documenting visits, reading visits, running reports and compiling statistics
(I happen to love statistics, so don’t feel bad for me).

From this experience, there are some things I’ve learned and am eager to share with anyone who will listen.

1. The deeper you are in the trenches, the harder it is
to see the battle.

Our home visitors are deep in the trenches:  planning activities, promoting parent-child interaction, assessing and addressing risk factors, writing referrals to community resources, teaching child development, administering scales and tools, and documenting.  Oh, the documenting!  They have a lot of work to do and a lot is riding on their being effective.  A worker can easily get bogged down or overwhelmed with all the things they must juggle.  It’s my task to help them see the big picture and understand why we do what we do.  To acknowledge their efforts and point out success, just as the home visitor does for the family, which brings me to my next point.

2. Everything is Parallel Process.

This is my absolute favorite idea in supervision.   Parallel process is the idea that I should provide for my staff what I want them to provide parents, who will in turn provide for their child.  We want our home visitors to provide a trusting, collaborative environment that is free from judgment.  Instead of posing as experts and telling them what to do, we want our workers to help inform families so that they can make good decisions about what is best for their family.  We want them to point out strengths and give praise and encouragement profusely.  To be present with them.  To give options.  To be a safe place to cry.  To advocate.  So it begins with me and assuring that I am modeling the very behaviors I want to see in my staff.  It’s an awesome responsibility, but nobody said supervising/home visiting/parenting was easy.

3. We plant the seed.

Both BIBs and Healthy Families can boast of innumerable success stories.  From assisting with jobs and GEDs to making sure a family didn’t go hungry for the night.  We have helped identify developmental delays and taught stressed families how to calm their babies.  We have helped to provide safe sleeping spaces for babies and helped homeless families find shelter.  These strengths become a foundation that families can build future success on.  But even in the most difficult families, the ones that the visitor doesn’t feel the impact she is making, we are still planting a seed.  We are instilling the idea that families have options and they have the power to make change, to do something different if they choose.  To trust someone for the first time.  To parent effectively despite their own childhood or life stressors.  We are making a difference in our community and in the world, and the effects are seen in school readiness, lower incidences in child abuse and neglect, lower crime rate, and increased access to health care and community resources.

It really is a great honor to be invited into people’s homes, and one we don’t take lightly.  We witness the joys and tears, the success and frustration and leave each home with the knowledge that we have made a positive impact.  It’s a pretty big deal, and I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

My friend had told me about the position and I thought –

“I can drive around town and take people to appointments, no big deal.”

Boy, was I wrong in thinking that it was just driving moms to appointments – it entails MUCH more.  I learned fast that this job was more than what meets the eye.

These are not just soon-to-be moms or new moms… These are women that have a story. Many have come from poverty stricken homes and have endured lives of mental and physical abuse.  I quickly learned that these moms would tell me things that they may not even tell their family support workers -

which can make a 20-40 minute ride very interesting.

In the last two years, I have learned just what an impact our program has on these women and children’s lives. Stories of how a BIBs worker was very, very supportive of a mother during her difficult pregnancy.  To a Healthy Family worker helping a mom from committing suicide when she thought life was not worth living.  So, I have also learned that I was a link in helping these women.

I always greet these moms with a smile and ask how they are. And, this is where they may tell me they need food or diapers. They are too embarrassed to tell their family support worker. I feel that my job is so much more than just driving moms from point A to point B. Giving positive words when I can knowing that they may be the only ones they get that day is something small that goes a long way.

Our programs are so life changing for our moms and children we serve. One look into the neighborhoods we serve and the moms we serve and you would understand the impact we can have on their lives.

This is why I am so proud to work for Better Indy Babies and Healthy Families. I love my job and hope I am always able to give  a smile and helping hand when I can.

Sincerely,

Nancy Joslin

I have been working with Healthy Families for the past 5 years, and I always thought that I was helping to shape and save lives, which is true, but as important as that – the families that I serve have helped to change and shape my life.  Healthy Families is unique because it’s our “job” to build a positive relationship with our families and to become welcomed guests into their homes.

Playing with the children, interacting with the family unit and embracing their needs is only a small portion of the work that we do. 

I respect each family where they are currently and where they want to be in the next few years, and I help them to create steps so that they can obtain their goals as a family and as an individual.  When I walk into a home and am greeted with smiles and hugs or before I leave and a child says, “Mommy, can she stay the night, please?” or being the first person a mother tells when something positive happens in their lives is…. PRICELESS!  It is at that moment that I realize why I drive the miles and put in the hours that I do… to help create a foundation for these families that have possibly never been given the tools to empower them or be in control of their own lives!

Some visits are filled with laughter, others spent wiping away tears and yet others are filled with teaching someone how to trust another individual for the first time in their lives.  Regardless of the circumstances that I encounter, I never leave a home without helping a family focus on something positive within their lives, no matter how minor or major it may appear at the time.  Sometimes the most rewarding gift is when a family realizes that just because I’m a Family Support Specialist does NOT mean I’m better than them.  It means that I’ve chosen to overcome the obstacles in my life through the perseverance and the desire to make a change.  Our childhood, gender, race or economic status isn’t what makes us different, it is what creates a bridge to embrace differences within each other.

Home visiting for me isn’t just the expectation of educating families, but the desire to learn something from each of the families I serve.  I have learned perseverance, compassion and gratitude from the families that I serve.  The families I serve have persevered through poverty, judgment and circumstance.  They are compassionate about my health and well-being!  As evidenced by – worrying about me driving to a visit in the snow and ice and encouraging me to take my time to be safe.  They persevere through three years of home visits and welcoming someone that was once a stranger into their home.

Their gratitude when you bring donations of clothes, toys or books that they weren’t expecting and realizing it’s the first time that someone has given them something without expecting something in return.

I think the most important thing I have learned is regardless of someone’s financial status, attitude, up-bringing or life circumstances, we all want to be treated with respect, kindness and agape love.  I accept each familiy where they are and desire to encourage and empower them to get where they want to be in a healthy way!

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Questions? Comments?
Leave a comment below and extend the conversation!

photo by Find Me Famous

Adding the FUN to fundraising during one of these events is what Prevent Child Abuse America is inviting everyone to do!  A HOUSE PARTY to help raise awareness and funding for this cause.

Healthy Families America is a program that is part of Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA), and before Healthy Families America opened a branch in Indiana, children in our community had to be reported as being abused or neglected FIRST before a family could receive support services.

HealthNet‘s Better Indy Babies (BIBs) and Healthy Families (HF) Programs would love for your PCA America House Party to benefit them!! These two programs work hand in hand to make sure Indianapolis children ages
zero to 5 AND their families have the resources needed for the healthy development and success in the first years of school.

You can learn more about the great things being accomplished by our BIBs/HF staff by reading our introduction post here.

What do you think about throwing a house party
and fundraising at the same time?
Comment below!

According to PregnantTeenHelp.org, around 750,000 teenagers will get pregnant this year.  Breaking this down further, it comes out to about one-third of all girls in the United States will get pregnant while they are a teenager.  Additionally, more than two-thirds of these teenagers will not graduate from high school.

The bright side – the teen birth rate has dropped about one-third since the early ’90s.

Better but still surprising! The effect that teen births can have on an individual are a cause for concern.  Whether it is because of the lack of education on the subject or wanting to hide the pregnancy, teenagers are at greater risk of having little to no prenatal care, which could be harmful both to the mother-to-be and the child.  A lack of prenatal care is a great cause for concern considering that teenage mothers also have a higher risk of premature births and lower birth weights. Both of these consequences can lead to greater short-term and long-term health problems for both the mother and child.

Shedding a light on teen pregnancy is important.  It is comforting to know that teen pregnancies are declining.  But when teen pregnancies do occur, support should be first on the list.  Reminding girls of the importance of prenatal care, offering help in any way, and just talking with a pregnant teen can make a WORLD of difference.

HealthNet’s Better Indy Babies (BIBs) and Healthy Families (HF) programs help at-risk and young families by offering a support team.  This team includes social workers, registered nurses and community health workers, and they provide prenatal health education, support and linkage to community resources.

• Learn more by visiting HealthNet’s program page, here.
• Or donate to BIBs/HF directly by clicking here.

Healthy Families America is a program that is part of Prevent Child Abuse America (PCA), and before Healthy Families America opened a branch in Indiana, children in our community had to be reported as being abused or neglected FIRST before a family could receive support services. Now with HealthNet’s Better Indy Babies (BIBs) and Healthy Families Programs, families are being sought out by an outreach team and offered support BEFORE abuse and neglect can happen.

According to the National Center on Child Abuse Prevention Research, almost 50 out of every 1000 children were taken in by state and local Child Protection Services (CPS) in 2006.  That means almost 3.6 million children in the U.S. and Puerto Rico were alleged to be abused.  I am always wary when I hear research about “allegations;” however, when it comes to child abuse, even being alleged to having abused a child should cause some concern.

PCA invites everyone to have a HOUSE PARTY to help raise awareness and funding for this cause.  A perfect idea for a family gathering during the holidays, or a great way to add some meaning to you campus party!

Many families do some sort of gift exchange or present give-away for Christmas.  What if this year instead of saying, “oooh! you only need to spend $25 dollars on me,” you say, “what if we all donate the $25 dollars to a community program that helps prevent child abuse”?  Just like that, your family of five can raise $125 to help ONE of those 50 children gain support services BEFORE abuse or neglect happens.

What are your thoughts on this “house party” for prevention idea?  Are there other opportunities to host a party to raise funding or awareness for a cause near to your heart?

To learn more about Better Indy Babies/Healthy Families of HealthNet click here or donate directly by clicking here.  Comments welcome!