Program for at-risk new moms comes to city
VNACJ opens Healthy Families program at Broadway location
BY CHRISTINE VARNO Staff Writer

LONG BRANCH - The Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey (VNACJ) has begun operating one of its programs out of a Long Branch building in order to cater to atrisk first-time moms in the area.

Healthy Families was started by the VNACJ in the 1980s, but it is "brand new" to Long Branch, Mauro O'Hara of the VNACJ said at the Dec. 11 city council workshop meeting.

"We are not looking for a resolution from the city," O'Hara said during a presentation from the VNACJ to council at the meeting. "This is for awareness.

"Right now we are working with a 14- year-old mom who is the mother of twins," she said, adding, "This program is to help her, to educate her and to work with her on bonding with the babies and providing nutrition for the babies.

"We also want to work with her to reach some of her goals, which [includes attending] high school," O'Hara said.

The VNACJ brought the Healthy Families program to Long Branch inAugust and has since acquired 200 Broadway to operate out of, according toNinaGoossens, themanager of the VNACJ public health programs.

"We think this is a good location," Goossens said at the meeting. "It is right in the heart of the city."

The Healthy Families Program is an intensive home visitation program staffed by specially trained lay personnel for at-risk, first-time mothers. In addition to the new Long Branch office, the Healthy Families program has locations in Asbury Park and Perth Amboy.

Experienced family support workers, working closely with community health nurses, visit expectantmothers in their last trimester of pregnancy or within two weeks of the birth of the infant, to offer parenting assistance and community resource assistance.

The support workers help mothers with prenatal and postpartum care, as well as offer strong family support, including job training, education, nutritional counseling, housing and transportation.

"This is a voluntary program and we start with mothers during pregnancy and work with them for five years," Goossens said.

"At the end of the fifth year, there is a graduation," she said, adding, "We see these momswho started offwith their life oneway and then their lives are in a completely different place."

The program offers emotional support for new moms by having workers spend time with them and their families to talk, share stories and show techniques.

Such techniques include showing a new mom how to calm a crying baby and showing how to make a home a safe place for a new baby. The social workers also help the moms understand how babies eat, sleep and grow.

Through the program, moms and their babies are linked with health-care services to help get the babies immunized as well as to get the whole family health care.

Another goal of the program is to help new parents meet the needs of the entire family, such as by teaching them how to get housing, education, child care and job training.

"Wewant to help promote self-sufficiency and help these moms get an education," Goossens said. "We want to teach basic parenting issues, teaching how to engage with the child and what is appropriate discipline."

Goossens said that many of the mothers in Long Branch do not speak English and that Healthy Programs has Spanish-speaking social workers on staff.

"The good thing about being in the same town as our families is that if they want to meet with a family support officer, they can come here," Goossens said.

Currently the Long Branch-based Healthy Families program has a full staff comprised of four trained family support workers, two of whomare bilingual, according to Goossens.

As of the Dec. 11 meeting, there were 18 moms enrolled in the program, and according to Goossens, the VNACJ was seeking to add threemoremothers within the next few days.

"Our goal is to serve 90 families in Long Branch [next] year," Goossens said. "The program restricts us to a maximum of 90 families."

The VNACJ has always taken a proactive role in addressing needs, according to O'Hara said.

"Seventeen of every 1,000 children are abused inMonmouth County," O'Hara said.

Goossens added, "There are many challenges. Given the stresses of poverty, there is more of a chance abuse will happen.

"These programs will hopefully break the cycle of poverty," she said. "And we just want you to know that we are in the community."

For more information on Healthy Families, call (732) 502-5158.