Maternal and Child Health

MotherNet/Healthy Families Loudoun

The MotherNet/Healthy Families Loudoun program’s intensive, long-term home visiting and case management services are targeted toward helping families build a foundation for success, where the outcomes of our work are evident in stronger, more self-reliant families, a healthier community, and children who enter school ready to learn and succeed.

Our services begin during pregnancy or at birth, and are offered for up to five years, supporting the most critical years in a child's development. Home visits are conducted at a level of intensity and frequency corresponding to each family's needs—weekly during pregnancy and immediately after birth (or even more often for the highest-risk participants), then less frequently as families demonstrate increased skills and self-sufficiency.

Throughout each family’s participation in the program, MotherNet/Healthy Families Loudoun’s bilingual (English-Spanish), extensively trained Family Support Workers provide:

• Long-term, one-on-one, in-home mentoring and guidance;
• Culturally and linguistically appropriate education on positive parenting skills, parent-child attachment, child development and appropriate expectations, appropriate discipline, child health, nutrition, home safety, communication and relationship building skills with male partners, family violence awareness and prevention, etc.;
• Monitoring of children's progress toward developmental milestones, while engaging parents' participation in stimulating optimal physical, social, emotional and cognitive development; and
• Emotional and practical support to achieve family-identified goals.

In addition, the Family Support Workers provide links and facilitate families' access to other appropriate medical, social, educational, vocational, legal and/or crisis resources, and ensure that these resources are utilized appropriately.

MotherNet/Healthy Families Loudoun works toward four major goals through a wide range of strategies and activities carried out by the Family Support Workers:

Goal 1: Promote positive parent-child interaction and positive parenting knowledge and behavior.

• Promote bonding and attachment, beginning prenatally. Model infant care and positive parent-child interaction.
• Educate parents on child development milestones and age-appropriate child rearing skills, beginning prenatally.
• Assess the quality of parent-child interaction by administering the standardized Keys to Interactive Parenting Scale at 3 months, and then annually until the target child reaches age 5.

Goal 2: Prevent child abuse and neglect.

• Educate parents on infant and child temperamental characteristics, realistic expectations and appropriate discipline, beginning prenatally.
• Monitor and promote child well-care, nutrition and safety.
• Provide emotional support to parents through home visits, telephone calls and other contact, including creative outreach when necessary.
• Refer parents to other sources of social support, including INMED’s parent education and support groups.

Goal 3: Promote optimal child development.

• Screen enrolled children for developmental delays using the standardized Ages and Stages Questionnaire at 11 time points during the first five years of life. Educate parents on the developmental milestones that will be observed at each screening, and teach parents activities that they can perform at home with their children to stimulate brain and overall development as well as to assess progress toward key developmental markers.
• Refer children suspected of developmental delays to other community resources for formal developmental assessment. Coordinate and monitor families’ follow-through with ongoing developmental services.
• Facilitate the development of optimal home environments by using parenting, child development and home safety educational materials during home visits.
• Evaluate the home environment by administering the standardized Caldwell Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment at 3 months, and then annually until the target child reaches age 5.

Goal 4: Achieve positive pregnancy outcomes and maternal and child health outcomes.

• Educate participants on the importance of early and regular prenatal care. Link pregnant women and teens with a prenatal care provider, providing transportation and/or translation as necessary to facilitate access.
• Follow prenatal education curriculum during home visits, emphasizing good nutrition and healthy lifestyles; factors linked to preterm labor, premature birth, and SIDS; and other topics related to healthy birth outcomes, such as STDs, tobacco/alcohol/substance abuse cessation and oral health care.
• Link families with a primary care provider, assisting with health care coverage enrollment as needed. Educate parents on the importance of preventive care, including immunizations, and share information on recommended schedule of well-care visits and immunizations. Provide transportation and/or translation as necessary to facilitate access.
• Discuss family planning, contraception and reproductive health as part of the home visiting curriculum with all mothers, placing a higher emphasis with teens. Promote birth spacing of at least 24 months between children.

Encourage new mothers to select and utilize a family planning method prior to their six-week postpartum checkup. Link participants with other family planning resources. Address issues of contraception negotiation and sexual coercion when necessary.