This home based, voluntary program is designed to strengthen families who could be at risk of abuse or neglect during pregnancy and the first five years of a child's life. A Healthy Families Team of six is housed at Crisis Nursery.

To be sure that all new parents get the help they need, Southwest Human Development operates Healthy Families Maricopa County. Part of a national initiative, Healthy Families is designed to strengthen high-risk families starting from pregnancy through the crucial first five year's of their child's life. Highly trained family support specialists visit families regularly in their own home to work on three primary goals:

• Promoting child health and development
• Enhancing parent/child interaction
• Preventing child abuse

Family needs are assessed when a woman is pregnant or in the hospital soon after a baby is born. Following screening and an interview by a trained family assessment worker, families may be eligible to enter the program. Families may also become involved with the program through community referral if their infant is less than three months old.

Different factors that put families at a high risk include the following:

• poverty, unemployment, lack of education, lack of health insurance
• lack of� prenatal care, low birth weight of baby
• high life stressors, single or teen parenthood
• having a baby with special needs or disabilities
• history of abuse or neglect as a child
• social isolation, lack of available friends and family for support
• substance abuse, domestic violence, or mental illness

Healthy Families Arizona services include:

• linking families with community services, health care, child care, and housing
• encouraging self-sufficiency through education and employment
• supporting effective parent-child interactions
• providing child development, nutrition, and safety education
• teaching appropriate parent-child interaction and discipline
• promoting child development, referrals for screening if delayed
• providing emotional support and encouragement to parents

Intensity of services is based on each family's needs, beginning weekly and moving gradually to quarterly home visits as families become more self-sufficient. Healthy Families is one of the most rigorously evaluated programs in Arizona. Results of these evaluations consistently show that 99% of the high-risk families served did not have a substantiated report of child abuse or neglect.

http://www.healthyfamiliesarizona.org/Friends_Supporters.aspx