Healthy Families is an early intervention home visitation initiative designed to support families in providing a nurturing, stimulating and safe environment for their children from prenatal until the child turns six.
Based on a review of their situation, families with new babies will be offered home visitation services by trained staff in a way that meets their specific needs. The program is voluntary and provided at no charge to eligible families.
Services are initiated prenatally or at birth using a standardized tool of assessment to systematically identify families who are most in need of services. This assessment tool assesses the presence of various factors associated with increased risk for child maltreatment or other poor childhood outcomes including: social isolation, substance abuse, parental history of abuse and low socioeconomic status.
Services are offered intensively (once per week) with well-defined criteria for increasing or decreasing intensity of service over the long term. Services focus on supporting the parent(s) as well as supporting parent/child interaction and child development.
At minimum all families are linked with a Public Health Nurse to assure optimal health and development. Depending on the family’s needs, they may also be linked to additional services such as: financial, food and housing assistance programs, school readiness programs, early intervention services, child care, job training programs, family support programs, substance abuse treatment programs, and domestic violence shelters.
Healthy Families
4832 – 49th Street
Rocky Mountain House, Alberta
T4T 1B2
Ph: (403) 845-6306