Did You Know?

Nurse-Family Partnership starts sooner than any other early childhood program, in early pregnancy. This allows it to influence development right from the start. This also means that the program has the potential to profoundly alter the trajectory of children’s lives, by focusing on helping families who are coping with adversities such as low income and housing insecurity. A journal article in BMC Public Health  provides a baseline look at the B.C.-based study, currently ongoing.

The BC Healthy Connections Project is the first Canadian scientific evaluation of the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) program. NFP aims to help young first-time mothers and their children by providing intensive home visits by specially-trained public health nurses, starting early in pregnancy. The goals — as can be seen in the study’s baseline report —  are to improve children’s mental health and development, while also improving the mothers’ lives.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for 12- to 18-year-olds in BC (following motor vehicle accidents). Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2019 is World Suicide Prevention Day, aimed at raising awareness of the risks of suicide and funding suicide prevention activities around the globe. Many suicide-related deaths could be prevented by treating the underlying disorders that put young people at risk — particularly depression and problematic substance use. For more information, see Vol. 3, No. 4 of the Children’s Mental Health Research Quarterly.