Becoming a parent means suddenly being responsible for the care of another human being 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So it may come as a surprise to new moms and dads when the addition of a family member leaves them feeling lonely and isolated. A program called Durham Connects works to relieve this sense of isolation by visiting parents and babies in their own homes and connecting them with community supports.
"Taking care of a newborn can be so isolating," said Jeannine Sato, director of Durham Connects. "You are really in your head, and at times you are just trying to cope hour to hour, keeping the baby alive. Sometimes parents just need a friendly nudge, to remind them that they are not going through this alone. That is why we are here to help them make connections to other people who can in turn help them become a better parent."
Durham Connects is a collaborative effort funded by the Duke Endowment with the purpose of improving child well-being in Durham County. Its roots lie in the Durham Family Initiative, a collaboration between Duke's Center for Child and Family Policy and the local nonprofit Center for Child and Family Health. By providing in-home nurse visits to high-risk children, the Durham Family Initiative has helped to lower the rates of child abuse and maltreatment in the county.
eight: 115%; font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; color: black">In its next iteration, the Durham Family Initiative has partnered with Durham County's health and social services departments to create a universal program Durham Connects that targets all of the children in Durham County. Sato said the hope is that Durham Connects can have an even greater effect on child well-being across the entire community.
In the first phase of the program, officially launched in July 2008, Durham Connects hired 10 nurses to visit half the newborns in Durham County those born on even numbered days. The second phase of the program should begin in January 2011, with the hiring of an additional 10 nurses to eventually cover all of the families in the county.
Though the program is optional, about 80 percent of parents have elected to have a nurse come to their home. The nurses make their home visits when the baby is about three weeks old.
In addition to checking to make sure both mother and child are healthy, the nurses also spend time with the parents finding out what they might need to help them cope with the challenges of raising a child. They ask about a number of topics such as their financial resources, social support system, access to parenting information and understanding of child development. When they find areas where the parents could use additional help such as if they are having a rough time with feeding issues or crying bouts they can then connect them with the relevant resources in the community.
"Parenting is hard, and you do need support," said Sato. "But many parents are just so overwhelmed with taking care of their child that they don't have the time or simply don't know where to look for help. Luckily, we have access to a database full of many wonderful community resources that we can refer new parents to."
An entire support staff is dedicated to maintaining and updating that list of resources. In the database are hundreds of agencies that can assist families with questions relating to childcare, health care, parenting and financial issues. But as comprehensive as that list may be, there are some services that simply do not exist.
One of the goals of the program is to identify these gaps in services and try to fill them.
Early in the program, the nurses discovered that many of the babies they visited were sleeping on soft mattresses, with other children, or in their parents' beds, which increases their risk of a SI DS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) death. So Durham Connects affiliated itself with a national program called Cribs for Kids, which enabled them to provide parents with a safe place to put their newborns to sleep. With personal donations from the community, the program purchases Pack 'n Play cribs and distributes them to parents for only a $10 co-payment.
Another need that often comes up during the nurse visits is that of social support for parents. No baby books or parenting guides can compete with the advice of a fellow parent or grandparent who can share what methods conventional and otherwise worked for them. The program has connected parents with peers and mentors, whether through a parenting group, play dates at a local church, or a phone advice network. It also created the Grandparent Network of Durham specifically to meet the needs of parents who do not have family in the area.
Thus far, Sato said the feedback from parents has been overwhelmingly positive, with more than 95 percent of parents surveyed responding that the program was helpful to them and their babies. Sato and others at Durham Connects are now compiling data from the community to see if parent and child well-being are better off as a result of the intervention. They are looking at child maltreatment rates and emergency room visits in Durham County and comparing them to that of five other counties in North Carolina.
"We are documenting every detail of the program and its impact with the idea of creating a model that can be replicated in other counties," said Sato. "So if Wake or Chatham County wanted to start a program of their own, we will have already worked out all of the kinks and can provide them with a model of how to do it from start to finish, which they can then modify for their own community."
Sato is particularly attuned to the challenges and joys of new parents.
She found her position at Durham Connects shortly after the birth of her first child, and was pleased to become a part of such a family-friendly enterprise. She said she wished a program like Durham Connects existed when she brought her first baby home.
"I would have been thrilled to have the help," said Sato. "If there is ever a time you need to ask for help, that is the time. There are so many questions people have, and they just pop up. It is never in the pediatrician's office when you have 10 minutes with them; no, it's in the middle of the night when you're alone. It is good to have a network of people and resources you can rely on."