South Carolina ETV shows the impact of the Spartanburg Nurse-Family Partnership home visiting program in this report.
A recent story by South Carolina ETV (SCETV), the state’s public educational broadcasting network, featured a look at the important work of home visiting. It focused on the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) program administered by the Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System and detailed LaShawna Nicholson’s motherhood journey.
A first-time mother, Nicholson leaned on the support of Debbie Brush, a registered nurse with Spartanburg NFP, which guides moms through pregnancy and into the first two years of their child’s life. Nicholson relied on Brush for counsel and information during the pregnancy and after the birth of her son Chance, who is now 2 years old. This proved especially critical after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to that, nurses would visit mothers at their homes, but since the start of the pandemic, nurses have used telehealth to connect with mothers.
“I wish everybody could go through what I went through. It was awesome, she was awesome,” Nicholson said to SCETV. “It was a good experience.”
Debbie Brush, Spartanburg Nurse-Family Partnership
Brush was pleased with how NFP was able to make the transition to telehealth during the pandemic.
“With telehealth, it’s been a lifesaver for us,” Brush told SCETV. “It definitely has opened the doors for us to be able to keep the lines of communication open and to give (mothers) the information that they need, even though we are not able to be in the home.”
As South Carolina’s lead agency for the Maternal, Infant and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) federal grant since 2010, Children’s Trust supports three evidence-based, voluntary home visiting models – Nurse-Family Partnership, Parents as Teachers, and Healthy Families America – in partnership with 16 implementing agencies covering 40 counties. Children’s Trust supported these sites in South Carolina to provide more than 17,000 home visits over the past year with funding from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Maternal and Child Health Bureau. Spartanburg NFP is one of the sites funded in part by Children’s Trust through the MIECHV grant.
Home visitors – who can be nurses, social workers or child development specialists depending on the program model – support preventive health and prenatal practices, help parents understand developmental milestones, promote the use of positive parenting techniques, and work with mothers to set goals for the future, continue their education, and find employment and child care solutions.
