Luisa Nelson has been visiting the homes of local families throughout the Kane County area providing support to new and expectant parents in hopes of lowering the risk of child abuse and neglect for the past 20 years.
A lifelong Aurora resident and mother of two, Luisa was the first employee hired as part of the VNA Health Care’s Healthy Families America program in 1994. Now 20 years later, both Luisa and the Healthy Families program which is part of the nonprofit health care provider VNA Health Care are celebrating their 20th anniversaries.
“My own parenting experiences help me to put myself in my client’s shoes to relate to what is going on in their life,” Nelson said. “Over the last 20 years, I’ve really seen how our program makes a difference in the lives of new parents over time. That is so rewarding, and it is what keeps me going day to day.”
Healthy Families is a free, voluntary child abuse prevention program, Jennifer Graham, its program coordinator said, “We target at-risk first-time moms such as teen moms and moms who are in a domestic violence situation or suffering from mental illness or social isolation.”
“Working with the family support worker, the family develops a family goal plan based on the family’s needs,” she said.
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Healthy Families provides resources in areas that can cause stress and worry to every new parent such as caring for a crying baby, ensuring a baby is receiving the proper nutrition, promoting healthy child development and coping with the stresses of the personal relationship and financial changes that may come with an addition to the family.
Each expectant mom is assigned a doula who visits the home every week, attends the birth, and continues to see the family for six weeks after the child is born. At the same time, a family support worker visits the home providing education and other support services based on the individual family’s situation.
Currently, about 70 clients are participating in the Healthy Family three-year program. “We begin working with moms prenatally and stay with the family until the child is 3,” Graham said. “At that point, we hook the family up to preschools and other community services as needed.”
“Graduating the parents from the three-year program is one of the most rewarding aspects of being a home visitor,” Nelson says. “It is a bittersweet moment as our visits have to end, but reflecting with them about how much they’ve grown and learned from the program is one of the best parts of my job.”
In her 20 years with Healthy Families and VNA, Luisa sees that some things have changed and some remain the same. “I see families dealing with the same issues today as they did 20 years ago,” Nelson said.
“The difference is now I have many more resources to help the men and women we work with.”
Based on a national model, VNA Health Care’s Healthy Families program began in Illinois in 1994. The Aurora-based program was the first to be funded by the Illinois Department of Human Services and with the collaboration of Mutual Ground served as a model for a statewide initiative integrating domestic violence programs and home visitation services.
Now, over 40 programs exist across the across the state, Graham said.