Family Nurse Partnership
An early intervention home visiting service for first time young mothers.
What is the Family Nurse Partnership
The Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) is a preventative, evidence based, voluntary service. Specially trained nurses offer structured home visits, from early pregnancy until the child is two years old. Each client has one nurse for the duration of the programme.
Visits are weekly for the first four weeks, then every two weeks until the baby is born. Nurses then visit weekly for the first six weeks of the baby’s life, reducing to every two weeks until the child is 21 months old, visiting then becomes once a month in preparation to say goodbye at 2 years old.
What is the purpose of the Family Nurse Partnership
The purpose of the service is to improve the health of new parents and their infants, help them access support from other services and to support them in meeting their goals and aspirations.
The therapeutic relationship built also supports new parents to overcome adverse life experiences and helps them give their child the best start to life possible.
How does Family Nurse Partnership work?
FNP is for first-time young mothers aged 19 and first-time young mothers who are 20-24 years old if they have one or more of the following vulnerabilities:
- Care leaver/looked after at any time in childhood.
- History of significant safeguarding issues.
- Current serious mental health issues.
- Substance misuse.
- Learning needs.
The aim is to give all babies a better start, regardless of any disadvantages in their family circumstances.
What happens in a Family Nurse Partnership session?
FNP builds a supportive relationship with the family, using in-depth methods, to work with young parents on attachment, relationships and psychological preparation for parenthood.
With a positive, optimistic and strength-based approach, FNP works with teen mums and their babies to effect behaviour change in the following areas:
- Personal health (substance use and mental wellbeing).
- Environmental health (homelessness and residential instability).
- Life course (maternal education and work).
- Maternal role (caregiving attitudes and behaviours).
- Family and friends (unsafe family/ friends network, relationships).
- Access to services (engagement with social care/ use of children's centres/sexual health services).
Visits usually last between one hour to one and a half hours, though the service is tailored to the client's individual needs. Regular assessments through discussion and observation are used to ensure that the work is a real partnership between the client and Family Nurse.
What are the outcomes you can expect by engaging with FNP?
- A healthy pregnancy
- Help planning your future.
- Improve child's health and development
- Safeguarding: Reduced childhood injuries
- School readiness: Improved language development
- Maximise cognitive development
- School performance: Emotional/behavioural regulation
How to get involved
Referrals are usually received from maternity services, but you can self-refer as well.
If you have not been referred to Family Nurse Partnership, you can email or phone the team, who will get back to you as soon as possible.
Phone 0203 049 5173
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