Have you ever wondered what exactly Invest in Kids does and why exactly we do what we do? An article written by Michelle Neal, Nurse-Family Partnership Program Director, and Amanda Fixsen, Director of Implementation, was published in the August issue of the Journal of Nursing Scholarship. This article will answer those questions and more!
Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) is one of the two proven programs Invest in Kids successfully implements across Colorado. It is a public health nursing program meant to improve the health and well-being of low-income, first-time parents and their children. Starting early in pregnancy, and continuing until the child’s second birthday, the program has been shown to produce improved pregnancy outcomes, better child health and development, and more economic self-sufficiency for families. The program has been tested and studied for over 40 years, and has been proven again and again to have long-term positive outcomes for families.
In our article, “The Nurse-Family Partnership in Colorado: Supporting High-Quality Programming with Implementation Science”, we describe how Invest in Kids uses nursing expertise combined with implementation science to grow and support Nurse-Family Partnership in Colorado.
Invest in Kids understands that just because the program was successful in a research setting does not mean it will be successful in real life. Today, the program operates in 22 different agencies across Colorado, each with their own unique population characteristics and nursing workforce challenges. Getting positive outcomes with Nurse-Family Partnership in every community is not guaranteed. Implementation Science provides a proven framework of support activities that Invest in Kids uses with all 22 sites to ensure all Nurse-Family Partnership teams have the tools needed to deliver the program with success.
Check out the article here or read the abstract to learn more about how we maintain community support, how we sustain and protect funding, and how we focus on the importance of recruitment and retention of nurses. Learn more about how we innovate within the program through quality improvements, all while assuring fidelity to the research model. Most importantly, you can gain a greater understanding of how we use both nursing expertise and implementation science to help change the life trajectory of Colorado’s most vulnerable families.