Greenville Nurse Family Partnership program

Rachelle is a 16 year old who had her life all figured out. She knew she was going to graduate from High school. She knew she would attend the community college in town. She knew when she was finished with school that she would open her own hair salon. She knew how it would all work out.

What Rachelle did know was that she would be pregnant at 16, and a mom before she even made it to her senior year in high school. Suddenly her life hit the brakes, and everything Rachelle knew vanished.

Luckily, Rachelle was good friends with her guidance counselor at her high school. Her counselor referred Rachelle to a friend of hers at the Greenville Ob/Gyn Clinic to have some initial tests done for her and her baby. While waiting in the lobby, Rachelle learned about Nurse Family Partnership (NFP).

NFP is a home visitation program, where young mothers are paired with experienced, caring, nurses (with experience in OB and Pediatrics). NFP moms are assigned to a nurse (who only has 25 mothers in her caseload). The nurse visits the 2-3 times a month until the baby is born, and then again every other week until the baby turns two.

NFP nurses provide moms like Rachelle with counseling on health matters from Shaken Baby Syndrome to the dangers of smoking during pregnancy. But, as the mom and nurse build a relationship of trust, the nurse becomes something more: a mentor, a friend.

Rachelle and her nurse, Amy, meet every other week. They have been working on everything from helping Rachelle find agencies that can provide affordable child care so she can get back to school and graduate, to connecting Rachelle with some resources to keep her lights on and her family fed.

Nurse Family Partnership has been a proven, peer-reviewed national model of pre-natal and peri-natal intervention for over 30 years (www.nursefamilypartnership.org). The program produces national results ranging from decreased SIDS-related death to increased economic stability of the mother to reduction in second and third births. The Duke Endowment is supporting Greenville First Steps and the Greenville Hospital System on this exciting journey with a 7-year commitment of $400,000/year.

When ramping up for the program, we knew that these nurses would need a host of resources, from computers to GPS systems to make it easier for them to do their jobs efficiently and effectively. A fulltime data collection position was hired to make it possible for the nurses to spend more time with the moms and less time at their desks.

Thanks to the support of Microsoft, through a donation of software to TechSoup, Greenville First Steps was able to acquire 6 licenses of Microsoft Office, allowing us to stretch our technology dollars to afford a new laptop for every nurse (to make data entry easier), a GPS for every nurse (to help nurses safely navigate through some of the less safe neighborhoods in our community), and a cellphone for each nurse (so Rachelle is always one telephone call away from her nurse).

Technology is truly making it possible for these one-on-one connections to happen. The nurses are more accessible to help these moms because of these technological gifts. The nurses are safer. The families are better connected with their nurse. And Amy can spend more time making sure Rachelle has all the support she needs during these challenging

Rachelle is a 16 year old who had her life all figured out. She knew she was going to graduate from High school. She knew she would attend the community college in town. She knew when she was finished with school that she would open her own hair salon. She knew how it would all work out.

What Rachelle did know was that she would be pregnant at 16, and a mom before she even made it to her senior year in high school. Suddenly her life hit the brakes, and everything Rachelle knew vanished.

Luckily, Rachelle was good friends with her guidance counselor at her high school. Her counselor referred Rachelle to a friend of hers at the Greenville Ob/Gyn Clinic to have some initial tests done for her and her baby. While waiting in the lobby, Rachelle learned about Nurse Family Partnership (NFP).

NFP is a home visitation program, where young mothers are paired with experienced, caring, nurses (with experience in OB and Pediatrics). NFP moms are assigned to a nurse (who only has 25 mothers in her caseload). The nurse visits the 2-3 times a month until the baby is born, and then again every other week until the baby turns two.

NFP nurses provide moms like Rachelle with counseling on health matters from Shaken Baby Syndrome to the dangers of smoking during pregnancy. But, as the mom and nurse build a relationship of trust, the nurse becomes something more: a mentor, a friend.

Rachelle and her nurse, Amy, meet every other week. They have been working on everything from helping Rachelle find agencies that can provide affordable child care so she can get back to school and graduate, to connecting Rachelle with some resources to keep her lights on and her family fed.

Nurse Family Partnership has been a proven, peer-reviewed national model of pre-natal and peri-natal intervention for over 30 years (www.nursefamilypartnership.org). The program produces national results ranging from decreased SIDS-related death to increased economic stability of the mother to reduction in second and third births. The Duke Endowment is supporting Greenville First Steps and the Greenville Hospital System on this exciting journey with a 7-year commitment of $400,000/year.

When ramping up for the program, we knew that these nurses would need a host of resources, from computers to GPS systems to make it easier for them to do their jobs efficiently and effectively. A fulltime data collection position was hired to make it possible for the nurses to spend more time with the moms and less time at their desks.

Thanks to the support of Microsoft, through a donation of software to TechSoup, Greenville First Steps was able to acquire 6 licenses of Microsoft Office, allowing us to stretch our technology dollars to afford a new laptop for every nurse (to make data entry easier). with these additional funds, we would be able to purchase a few additional safety features including a GPS for every nurse (to help nurses safely navigate through some of the less safe neighborhoods in our community), and a cellphone for each nurse (so Rachelle is always one telephone call away from her nurse), and to purchase additional software to set up a website for these moms and nurses to visit and blog with one another, and to develop donor tracking software to maximize the results collected from our data collection position in connecting these outcomes with our funders.

Technology is truly making it possible for these one-on-one connections to happen. The nurses are more accessible to help these moms because of these technological gifts. The nurses are safer. The families are better connected with their nurse. And Amy can spend more time making sure Rachelle has all the support she needs during these challenging times