How to refer young people
You can make a referral to the FNP programme for someone in your care by either ‘phoning the Tower Hamlets FNP team on 020 8223 8601, emailing us at [insert email hyperlink] or completing an FNP Notification/Referral Form here.
Referrals can be made for all first-time mums aged 21years and under (first live birth) up to 24years where there are additional vulnerabilities (see notification/referral form).
Referrals are to be made as early as possible in the pregnancy but must be made before the 28th week of pregnancy.
How it works?
By using a psycho-educational approach and a focus on positive behaviour change FNP provides ongoing intensive support to young, first-time mothers and their babies as well as fathers and other family members if mothers would like them to take part.
The Family Nurse Partnership approach
is strengths-based. Structured home visits are delivered by specially trained nurses that start early in pregnancy, continuing until the child is aged one to two years of age. The family nurses deliver a personalised intervention based on the specific strengths and needs of each mum. This includes flexing programme content, 'dialling' the frequency of visits up or down, and early graduation, all based on a collaborative nurse-parent assessment of need using an assessment tool called the “new mums star’. The delivery of the healthy child programme is embedded within FNP.
Family Nurse Partnership is a preventative service, underpinned by a robust evidence base. This demonstrates that if delivered well it has the potential to change the life chances of vulnerable parents and babies, with long-term positive impacts on health, social and educational outcomes breaking the cycle of intergenerational disadvantage.
What does the service achieve?
Family Nurse Partnership helps young pregnant mothers, their partners, and their children transform their lives. Simply put, it does this by working intensively through the therapeutic relationship with their family nurse which brings not only the delivery of the programme but consistency and a positive role model that they may not have experienced before. Family nurses work with young mothers to:
- Build positive relationships with their baby and understand their baby’s needs
- Make the lifestyle choices that will give their child the best possible start in life
- Build their self-efficacy (believe in themselves and their ability to succeed and achieve their goals)
- Build positive relationships with others, modelled by building a positive relationship with the family nurse.
Working in partnership
Through support, focusing on strengths but challenging constructively patterns of negative behaviour FNP helps to control demand on local services by encouraging clients to engage with other appropriate services, managing and reducing safeguarding risks and, in cases where additional safeguarding support is necessary, ensuring that this is accessed quickly and effectively.
Feedback from professionals
“Joint working with the FNP is a key relationship. The family nurses help with supporting access to early midwifery care, they have quick access to the young person’s midwife. This works both ways, we are able to support and facilitate recruitment to the FNP. We are keen to do this as we recognise the valuable contribution that the family nurse makes to the young person in their development as individuals and in their progress as parents”. Gateway Midwife Team Lead for Teenage Parents
“FNP is a fantastic ambassador for multi-agency work and it has made a real difference to the collaboration of the different services working with young mums in the borough” Healthy Lives Advisor