Healthy Families Helps New Parents Get Off To a Good Start

For Mike, everything about being a parent was new and frightening. And he and his infant daughter were completely on their own. Since the baby's mother was hospitalized, it was Mike who was responsible for all of the infant's care, from changing diapers and 'round-the-clock feedings to providing the stimulation infants need to learn and grow.

Then Mike (not his real name) signed up for Healthy Families, the program for first-time parents run by Family and Children's Services of Central Maryland in conjunction with Howard County General Hospital.

He's read all the materials provided during visits from his family support worker, attends Healthy Family events with other single parents and has made his home "baby friendly."

No longer overwhelmed by the responsibility of being a single parent, Mike is now a proud, attentive, confident and skilled dad.



National Program

Healthy Families America was launched in 1992 by Prevent Child Abuse America (formerly the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse) in partnership with Ronald McDonald House Charities. The program is designed to help first-time parents adjust to their new roles as moms and dads.

Through home visits, educational materials and get-togethers for parents and their young children, it aims to promote positive parenting, enhance child health and development and prevent child abuse and neglect.

Today, there are Healthy Family programs in more than 400 communities in the U.S. and Canada. Howard County launched its program in 2001 with funding from the Howard County Children's Board, the Freddie Mac Foundation, the county Community Service Partnerships Program and The Columbia Foundation.

In 2009, Healthy Families provided 1,681 home visits to 134 local families.



Support and Friendship

Healthy Families director Judy Templeton said Mike is just one of "literally hundreds of local success stories." For first-time parents overwhelmed by all the lifestyle changes that come with the arrival of a new baby, the program provides not just education, but a network of friends.

Parents attend an educational or social event once a month. Among the events are an annual Thanksgiving dinner organized by the Women's Giving Circle of Howard County and coordinated by Family and Children's Services Howard County Advisory Board member Rae Millman, and "Shop 'til You Drop" events, where the new parents can choose from hundreds of gently used items collected by another Advisory Board member and Women's Giving Circle Advisory Board member, Megan Bruno, from her friends and associates.

The items range from baby supplies and toys to clothes for the moms and dads.

But the main emphasis is the home visits where family support workers teach positive parenting skills, Templeton said. The visits begin at birth and continue until the child is five. Family support workers also put parents in touch with necessary resources and refer them to other agencies that can help.

"We help infants and their parents get their lives together off to a good start in even the most difficult circumstances," Templeton said. "It's wonderful to see how well our 'graduates' are doing. Their parents learned skills through Healthy Families they wouldn't have gotten anyplace else."

For more information about Healthy Families, contact jtempleton@fcsmd.org.