Family Nurse Partnership

Evidence tells us that teenage mothers are more likely to have an economically or socially deprived background. Young mothers are more likely to be in receipt of benefits, be living in social housing, experience partnership breakdown, and have poor mental and physical health. Children of young mothers experiencing these vulnerabilities are more likely to have emotional and behavioural problems, poorer health, suffer more accidents and injuries and have poorer cognitive skills and are more likely to suffer abusive harm, have a lower IQ and problem behaviour. (Hall & Hall)

It can be expected therefore that women experiencing such vulnerabilities are less likely to display sensitive parenting leading to a poor parent-infant relationship and higher risk of insecure or disorganised attachment.

The project aimed to:

• Improve the outcomes of pregnancy by helping young women improve their antenatal health and the health of their unborn baby
• Improve children’s subsequent health and development by helping parents to provide consistent, competent care for their children
• Improve women’s life course by planning subsequent pregnancies, finishing their education and finding employment

• FNP was a well-received programme with low attrition rates. This is linked to the ability of the FNP nurses to develop therapeutic relationships with their clients.
• ASQ (Ages & Stages Questionnaire) and ASQ:SE (Ages & Stages Questionnaire: Social Emotional) scores suggest that at 20 months all children within the FNP cohort were on track with both growth and development and social and emotional development to be school ready. This is particularly significant when the ACEs (adverse childhood experiences) scores of the parents are taken into consideration.
• The FNP team delivered the adaptations to the model as per the ADAPT model, allowing the programme to be delivered to need. There were 7 early graduations from the programme representing improved value for money as the places were filled to maximise caseloads.
• FNP delivered training packages across wider children’s services and offered to provide core packages as part of the ‘workforce passport’ for prevention and early help.
• FNP has a particular supervision model that effectively supports nurses, which means that nurses are less likely to leave, and this was evident in the team in Bradford.

*This section includes information from both the evaluation report/s and project