New mothers-to-be around Delaware County now have a chance to be a part of a nurse family partnership program. According to their website the program “helps transform the lives of vulnerable first-time moms and their babies. Through ongoing home visits from registered nurses, low-income, first-time moms receive the care and support they need to have a healthy pregnancy, provide responsible and competent care for their children, and become more economically self-sufficient.” Carrie Bale, Executive Director of The Muncie Delaware County BY5 Initiative says the program is now accepting new families around the community.
“The Goodwill Nurse Family Partnership had to chose from a variety of communities and they said ‘you guys are ready and we want to work with you’ and now they are serving families here in Delaware County,” Bale said.
The Nurse-Family partnership program began accepting new families in September. Mothers-to-be can be single or married. The program aims to promote breaking the cycle of poverty while strengthening communities and improving lives.
“This program is phenomenal but moms have to join the program before 28 weeks of pregnancy. So it really takes a community effort to help find these new moms to say ‘hey do you know you can have a nurse come stay with you until your child’s two?’” Bale said.
The Muncie BY5 Initiative focuses on making sure all children are kindergarten ready by age five by bringing awareness to early childhood education through discussing the topic at city council meetings and helping bring programs like the nurse-family partnership to Muncie. Kylene Swatcamer, assistant director of United Child Care Center believes initiatives like this are important.
“It kind of brings recognition to those things, a lot of people hear the results of kindergarten scores or teacher reports when they get to kindergarten but a lot of times you don’t hear about how the children are doing before they get to that,” Swatcamer said.
For more information about the nurse family partnership visit nursefamilypartnership.org or call 317-524-3999.
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