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• Family Nurse Partnership Programme - Information and Application Form 2010-11: Recruitment of Fourth Wave of Sites

Health-led parenting support

Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) information and application form: 2010/11 recruitment of fourth wave of sites
We are inviting Children’s Trust Boards / PCTs to apply to test the Family Nurse Partnership programme from 2010/11. Full details of the FNP programme and the application process are set out in this document.
 

The Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) programme

In Reaching out: An action plan on social exclusion (September 2006), the Government announced it would test the nurse–family partnership model of intensive home visiting for vulnerable first-time young mothers. The Prime Minister announced in Autumn 2007 that, 'Because no child should ever be written off, for mothers of infants, we will expand the help of nurse–family partnerships.'  A total of £30 million has been allocated to support this over the spending review period, from 2008/09 to 2010/11. 

In England the intervention is called the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) and the Government has been running it as a pilot since March 2007. Early signs are promising, and the Child Health Strategy, published in February 2009, said the Government wished to expand to 70 pilot sites by April 2011, and that it would like to see the FNP offered to the most vulnerable first time young mothers across England over the next decade, if the research findings are supportive. There are now 30 FNP test sites up and running, and a further 20 preparing to start delivering FNP in 09/10. The list of sites is available to download.

What is the Family Nurse Partnership programme?

• An intensive, preventive home visiting programme for vulnerable, first time young parents that begins in early pregnancy and ends when the child reaches 2. Pregnancy and birth are key points when most families are highly receptive to support and extra help
• The programme goals are to improve antenatal health, child health and development and parents’ economic self-sufficiency
• It is a licensed, structured programme, developed over 25 years in the US. It is delivered by specially trained family nurses who have mainly been drawn from health visiting and midwifery or mental health and school nursing.

Each site has a supervisor and a team of up to six family nurses. Each nurse is expected to recruit a caseload of approximately 25 mothers. Practitioners delivering the programme have additional skills and knowledge in areas such as building a therapeutic relationship, motivational interviewing, attachment, behaviour change and using the licensed FNP guidelines and materials.

What is the evidence that FNP can benefit children and families?

Thirty years of research and development in the US has shown significant and consistent short and long-term benefits for children and families. Three large-scale, randomised controlled trials have shown the following:

• Improvements in women’s antenatal health
• Reductions in children’s injuries
• Fewer subsequent pregnancies
• Greater intervals between births
• Increases in fathers’ involvement
• Increases in employment and earnings
• Reductions in welfare and food stamps
• Improvements in school readiness
• Reduced arrests and criminal behaviour for children (at 15) and mothers.

The FNP is also being evaluated in England. The research programme includes: a formative evaluation of the first ten pilot sites, to learn about the delivery of FNP in England and to assess some short-term impacts; a randomised controlled trial, to assess whether the FNP delivers benefits for children and mothers compared to usual services and its cost effectiveness; analysis of the extensive programme monitoring data; and a series of smaller research studies to inform future adaptation of the FNP in England.

Early learning in England suggests that:

• The FNP successfully engages and connects with hard to reach and vulnerable young parents
• Fathers are more engaged
• Clients value their family nurses highly
• The nurses are deeply committed and enthusiastic about the programme
• We seem to be able to meet most of the fidelity requirements, which are designed to help achieve similar outcomes to those in the US research trials
• Early impacts look promising, such as reducing smoking in pregnancy and increasing breast feeding
• Hard to reach families are accessing children’s centre services through FNP.

Applications for fourth wave of test sites

For information and details regarding the application process for the recruitment of the fourth wave of sites, read the Family Nurse Partnership: Information and application form 2010–11 document available on this page.

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Associated documents

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Download the contents of this page: as a Word Document

Last updated on 15/06/2009