Parents helped to bond with baby

By Catherine Marston
BBC News

A family nurse programme designed to help vulnerable and hard-to-reach first-time parents is being deemed a success a year after it began.

£30m has been spent on the scheme as part of the government's action plan to prevent social exclusion. One family tells how it has worked for them.

For many parents building bonds with their baby is easy.

Young parents like Gareth Tuck have benefited from the scheme

Many take it for granted that they know how to build trust and communicate with their child.

There are families, though, who lack these most basic of skills and that is where family nurses step in.

Jacqueline Clough, from County Durham, was nervous about becoming a young mum. She and her partner Gareth Tuck are out of work, and are considered to be at risk of social exclusion.

They are just the type of family the government wants to reach.

Gareth struggles to read and write and they may not have been aware of all the services and advice they could have, to help with bringing up their five-and-a-half-month-old daughter, Bethany.

Michelle Wolstenholme is their family nurse and has been working with the couple since the first few weeks of pregnancy.

This is part of the County Durham and Darlington pilot scheme, one of 10 initial programmes to try out the ideas.

Lifestyle changes

Michelle works with the family over many months, visiting once a fortnight and discussing issues such as healthy eating, smoking, building relationships and attachment with baby.

The idea is to encourage parents to change and improve their lifestyles and relationships to help the development of their child.

Mother Jacqueline Clough praised the help of the family nurse

Her role goes far beyond that of a health visitor or midwife.

Michelle asks Jacqueline and Gareth to write words they associate with the issue of trust, on the back of strips of coloured paper.

They write "importance of families", "understanding" and "caring" and then Michelle makes a paper chain to show them how those factors link together to provide a strong bond.

She then pulls the chain apart, to help them understand how trust can be broken and is sometimes hard to repair.

This session is designed to explain how a child depends on their parents for support, love and consistency.

Jacqueline says she has certainly found the advice very useful.

"I've had help with looking for a job," she says. "Help with trying to get back into college, and help to look after Bethany, and get her to sleep in the day, as she is having trouble sleeping."

Gareth too says he believes the work of the family nurse, especially during Jacqueline's pregnancy, has helped him become a much better parent.

"I wasn't too happy on the idea at first," he says.

"But now my daughter is here I'm feeling proud of myself and more responsible at looking after her."

Gaining confidence

The government's review suggests almost half the fathers and partners have been present for at least one visit by the family nurses, and they are typically not always easy to engage.

A total of 88% of the under-20s parents invited to take part have signed up for the scheme.

Family nurses are also reporting positive changes in behaviour of parents and better maternal well-being.

Michelle says it takes time to win the trust of these often hard to engage families but slowly and steadily things do change.

"It's actually about being open and honest through the whole of the time," she says.

"We always say you tell me if you're not happy about something, going on that and respecting a person is how it works, and I think that builds up over time."

A second set of 10 pilot schemes is already under way.