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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