BC Healthy Connections Project

NFP is an intensive home-visiting program designed to help young first-time mothers and their children. The goals are to improve children’s health and development, while also improving mothers’ life situations. While Nurse-Family Partnership was tested in a pilot study at McMaster University in Ontario, it has never been fully evaluated in Canada before. This project involves a randomized controlled trial evaluation of the Nurse-Family Partnership program (2011–2022).

The BCHCP is being funded by the BC Ministry of Health, with support from the BC Ministry of Children and Family Development and four of BC’s Health Authorities (Fraser Health, Interior Health, Island Health and Vancouver Coastal Health). Funding is also being provided by the Mowafaghian Foundation and the R & J Stern Family Foundation. Charlotte Waddell and Harriet MacMillan are the Nominated Co-Principal Investigators. Nicole Catherine is the Scientific Director and Co-Principal Investigator. Susan Jack and Debbie Sheehan are also Co-Principal Investigators.

The Nurse-Family Partnership is being evaluated using randomized controlled trial (RCT) methods investigating how the program compares with existing health and social services. We are also conducting two adjunctive studies: a process evaluation, determining how well the intervention is being implemented and what factors may be influencing its outcomes and a Healthy Foundations Study, examining biological markers of health outcomes for children over the first two years of life.

We launched the RCT in October  2013 and closed recruitment in late 2016.The CHPC study team is following each of the 739 families until children reach their second birthday and until all families have completed a series of interviews.

You can reach the BC Healthy Connections Project by email at: bchcp@nullsfu.ca

According to BC’s longstanding intentions, regional Health Authorities will be offering NFP to all eligible women — as a program embedded within other public health services — starting in late 2016. The regional Health Authorities, together with the BC Ministry of Heath, are responsible for all aspects of planning and implementing the ongoing delivery of NFP as a provincial program from here.

For more information on the program, please contact your family doctor or midwife, local Health Authority or Donna Jepsen, NFP Provincial Coordinator with the BC Ministry of Health at 604-775-0336.

Updates from the BCHCP Scientific team

Training Manuals

The aim of the following training manuals is to inform health researchers, research trainees and students conducting long-term research with populations experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage. This body of work highlights the team’s knowledge and expertise collected over eight years in conducting 4,000 in-person and telephone research interviews with 739 girls and young women and their 737 children who were experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage

Part 1: Field Interviewer Hiring and Training

Part 2: Interview Preparation and Risk Mitigation

Part 3: Questionnaire Administration

Part 4: Data Collection Considerations

Part 5: The Field Interviewer Role

Features

The three most recent features are linked below. To go to a page containing all the BCHCP features, please click here.

  • BCHCP Methodology Manuals now available for researchers November 26, 2020
    The study team for the BC Healthy Connections Project (BCHCP) has recently released a series of scientific methodology manuals. Their aim is to inform health researchers, research trainees and students conducting similar long-term research, in particular with populations experiencing socioeconomic disadvantage. This body of work highlights the team’s knowledge and expertise collected over eight years in ...
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  • Preparing to parent — while coping with multiple adversities October 25, 2018
    Life has been challenging for many of the girls and young women participating in BC’s randomized controlled trial that is evaluating the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) program for the first time in Canada. The first data report on participants’ profiles when they entered the trial in early pregnancy has just been released. This report reveals a group ...
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  • Many happy returns: All babies are delivered August 15, 2017
    Consider this an unusually weighty birth announcement. All the babies have now been born to the young mothers enrolled in the BC Healthy Connections Project (BCHCP). There are 744 young ones, including 11 sets of twins. “People are usually happy to hear birth announcements, but this one is particularly exciting,” says Charlotte Waddell, one of the project ...
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