News

United Methodist Children’s Home joins forces with Nurse Family Partnership

By Leah Nicole Williams
Mt. Vernon Register-News
May 4, 2007

CENTRALIA — In an effort to ensure the success of area low-income, first-time mothers, the United Methodist Children’s Home has partnered with an evidence-based practice that places nurses inside the homes of the parents-to-be.

Clete Winklemann, UMCH president and chief executive officer, announced the collaboration with the Nurse-Family Partnership during a dinner celebration at Bogie’s in Centralia.

The event included a presentation on the program as well as information on how it will best benefit about 100 clients in both Jefferson and Marion counties.

Both Jefferson and Marion counties are currently in the top 10 percent of all Illinois Counties for teen pregnancy and in the top 20 percent for poverty, Winklemann reported.

“They speak of the need of our community and they speak of the need to the partner,” Winklemann said of the statistics.

The addition of Jefferson and Marion counties join northern Illinois’ Kane County as the only regions that offer this program in the state. Erika Bantz, program developer for the Midwest region for Nurse-Family Partnership, said the program uses Medicaid as a launching point for other criteria.

Bantz also said the state is a leading example in terms of subsidizing tax dollars for helping first-time pregnant mothers cope with the task in front of them.

“Illinois is far ahead of the curve,” she said.

Bantz said the program would be geared toward first-time mothers, particularly teenagers.

Mark Valentine, assistant director of the Parents Too Soon Ounce of Prevention program, said $410,000 in funding will be poured into the program. He said the Nurse-Family Partnership brings an impeccable track record and expertise, one that spans across more than 20 years of practice and about 30 years of research.

“We’re helping moms fall in love with their babies and babies fall in love with their moms,” Valentine said. “If that is not an intrinsic value, then I don’t know what is.”

Joyce Butts of the Best Beginnings program, which is currently in place in the two counties, said most of the referrals come from other entities in the counties, including the health departments, Butts also said the nurses will tailor their services to meet the needs and the wants of the families enrolled in the program.

“You hear them say ‘my families, my girls,’ ” Butts said. “They care that much.”

Butts said what she likes best about the Nurse-Family Partnership is that it will allow her staff to incorporate more of their professional skills.

“We didn’t get to use our nursing skills as much,” she said. “Now we get the chance to do so.”