Beginning in March, the family of every child born in Greenville County will have a new way to get reassurance and the answers they need to give their baby a promising start in life.
Greenville First Steps has partnered with the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, Prisma Health and Bon Secours Health to offer Family Connects, an evidenced-based program that includes a visit in the hospital with an offer for a home visit with a nurse three weeks later. Derek Lewis, executive director of Greenville First Steps, says the beauty of the program is its universality.
“As a parent, I know everybody struggles when they bring a baby home,” he says. “Having a nurse visit lets you ask if what you’re experiencing is normal. It might help families realize the things they are going through are not unique.”
The visits are geared to complement pediatric and postpartum obstetric appointments, addressing newborn care and development, feeding concerns and postpartum complications. If needs are identified, the program links parents with services already available in the community. Those resources can be as varied as referrals for a pediatrician, therapist or parenting classes, or help finding child care, transportation and housing.
“Often families don’t learn about these services until after they need them,” Lewis says. “In this case, they find out in time to make the most of existing interventions to address concerns before they become serious.”
The program is based on protocols developed over two decades by the nonprofit Family Connects International, established in 2001 as an initiative of Duke University and the Center for Child and Family Health with the support of the Duke Endowment. Piloted in Durham, North Carolina, the program is now available in more than 40 U.S. communities.
In a 2019 randomized control trial, Family Connects clients experienced similar outcomes to other evidenced-based home-visitation programs — including Nurse Family Partnership and Positive Parenting Program — at a fraction of the cost. Participating families saw a reduction in hospitalization rates for children ages zero to 60 months and a 40% reduction in rates of Child Protective Services investigations. Mothers were 28% less likely to demonstrate signs of clinical levels of anxiety and parents reported 17% greater community connections. Positive benefits observed were greater for Medicaid-eligible families than for families with private insurance.
Registered nurse Nicole S. Matheny is one of seven Family Connects nurses employed by South Carolina DHEC to visit families when their newborn is about 3 weeks old. She’s been providing a similar service since 1999 for infants with conditions like low birthweight or prematurity or who spent time in the neonatal intensive care unit. She has seen real benefits both in catching and addressing medical needs quickly — such as a baby with a fever or a mother whose blood pressure is dangerously high — and reassuring concerned parents when their baby is fine.
“Moms are more comfortable in the home environment. They can ask about anything and we can go into as much detail as needed,” Matheny says. “Family Connects is a wonderful program, and we’re so excited to be able to grow what we’ve been doing all these years to serve more families at no cost to them.”
Family Connects is supported by a combination of public funding through First Steps, DHEC and Medicaid, as well as grants from philanthropic organizations like the Greenville Health Authority, the Margaret Linder Southern Endowment Fund and others.
To learn more, visit familyconnectsgreenville.com
