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First Born

Category

Child & Family Health

Child's Age

Prenatal, 0-1 years, 1-2 years, 2-3 years

Participant

Children, Parents/Guardian

Languages

English, Spanish

Brief Description

Home visiting program for first-time parents/caregivers during pregnancy and early childhood to help improve family and community outcomes. Home visits include working on personal goals, understanding challenges, finding opportunities to grow, and building positive, playful, relationships with their child while supporting the child’s development.

Expected Impact

  • Decrease in families' trips to the emergency department  
  • Decrease in the number of families that see their primary care manager 9 or more times in the first year of life 
  • Increase in positive parenting practices (bonding and positive interactions) 
  • Decrease in child abuse and maltreatment 
  • Increase in parental/caregiver social support 
  • Increase in parent/caregiver confidence and satisfaction

Core Components for Model Fidelity

  • Home Visits: Use one of the First Born Curriculum, listed below. For more information on the options available, visit the First Born Program Curriculum webpage. 
    • Prenatal 
    • First Year of Life 
    • Toddler Years 
    • 3-5 Years Old
    • Early Literacy Development
    • Racial Identity Development 
    • COVID-19

Note: Based on the populations sampled in the research, Smart Start funding is allowable for implementing First Born with children ages birth to 3 years.

Languages Materials are Available in

English, Spanish

Delivery Mode

In-person home visits, with some flexibility for virtual/phone contact or meeting outside of the home.

Dosage

During the first year, home visits occur once a week, with each session lasting at least 45 minutes each. In the next four years, home visits occur at least twice a month.

Note: Based on the populations sampled in the research, Smart Start funding is allowable for implementing First Born with children ages birth to 3 years.

Infrastructure for Implementation

Materials: First Born curriculum and liability insurance for the program.   
 
Space: Visits occur at the child’s home or virtually; no additional space is necessary. 
 
Other: For more information on the implementation process, visit the Become a Program webpage or view the following PDF: What Does It Mean to be a First Born & More Program?

Staffing Requirements

Program Manager (1.0 FTE serves 1-2 families) preferred qualifications:

  • Master’s Degree in counseling, psychology, social work, or related field; years of relevant experience may substitute education requirement or current Registered Nurse (RN) licensure.   
  • Previous direct service experience in home visiting, and/or previous experience working with populations to be served by your program.   
  • Experience in staff supervision and development.   
  • Ability to maintain a caseload of 1-2 families and supervise up to 10 employees.   
  • CPR/First Aid certification within 90 days of hire.  

Home Visitor (1.0 FTE serves 20-25 families) preferred qualifications: 

  • High school diploma or GED.   
  • Knowledge of infant and toddler development and experience in working with children 0-5 years old.  Note: Based on the populations sampled in the research, Smart Start funding is allowable for implementing First Born with children ages birth to 3 years.
  • CPR/First Aid certification within 90 days of hire.  

  Postpartum Lactation Specialist (1.0 FTE or as requested) preferred qualifications: 

  • Current nursing license, or comparable certification, with lactation license or certification, such as Certified Lactation Educator (CLE), Certified Lactation Counselor (CLC) or Internationally Board-Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC).   
  • Previous direct service experience working with populations to be served by your program.   
  • CPR/First Aid certified.

Training for Model Fidelity

Core Competency Certification Training: Required training includes 29 core competencies, 15 hours of self-paced online content and 10 hours of live training. To maintain model certification, staff must participate in at least 2 hours of training provided by the Model Office each calendar year.  
 
For more information, visit the Home Visitor Training webpage or the Become a Program webpage.

Contact Information

https://firstbornprogram.org/

General Inquiries: firstborn@sfcc.edu

Cost Estimates

The initial fee is dependent on the size of the program and number of staff that are starting, but typically ranges between $5,000-$20,000.  The initial fee covers:   

  • Implementation Support: first 3 months  
  • Ongoing Mentoring Support: first 6 months after the implementation period ends  
  • Instructor-Led Training (18H Live Zoom)  
  • Access to Online Self-Paced Modules Training (Canvas)  
  • FAN (Facilitating Attuned Interactions)  
  • Level 1 (10H), Level 2 (3H), Day 3 (5H) Certification   
  • 3H CE Training yearly   
  • Social Solutions Data Platform: 1 person per program.  additional cost per additional users  
  • Yearly Q&A with Licensed Pediatric Medical Professional 

The annual licensing fee is $1,500 plus $200 curriculum access per staff member. The annual fee covers:   

  • 1 Instructor-Led Session (1.5H Live Zoom)

Purpose Service Code (PSC)

5413 – Prenatal/Newborn Services

Program Identifier (PID)

First Born

Minimal Outputs for NCPC Reporting

FY 23-24:

  • Number of parents/guardians participating†  

FY 24-25:

  • Number of parents/guardians participating†  

†Select Family Support Programs data collection will include basic demographic data for parent/guardian participants including Race, Ethnicity. Data on interpretation and transportation will be collected when appropriate.

Minimal Outcomes for NCPC Reporting

FY 23-24:

  • Increase in parent use of services 
  • Increase in parents’/caregiver's social support

FY 24-25:

  • Increase in parent use of services
  • Increase in parent social support

Minimal Measures for NCPC Reporting

FY 23-24:

  • Parent/Caregiver use of services calculation 
  • Social Support Index (SSI)

FY 24-25

  • Parent Use of Services Calculation
  • Social Support Index (SSI)  

NCPC Evidence Categorization

Evidence Informed- 2 publications. 1 randomized control trial and 1 program evaluation using a nonexperimental design.

Research Summary

The referenced studies include a randomized controlled trial and a program evaluation using a nonexperimental design. In 2017, Kilburn and Cannon1 studied the First Born program and its relationship with the use of infant health care. Families that were part of the First Born Program intervention were 1/3 less likely to visit the emergency room during the first year of the child’s life and were 41% less likely to visit their primary care doctor more than 9 times. FBP children were less likely to have serious injuries or to be admitted to the hospital, but these differences were not statistically significant. The significant results remained significant for the lower-risk families and so FBP was shown to be effective for both low-risk and high-risk families. In a program evaluation of First Born in 2005,2 the researchers found that mothers significantly improved their social support network, including emotional, marital, personal, and community support. Though there was a small sample size for those with mental health issues, substance abuse issues, psychical history, and history of abuse, there were significant improvements noted. Mothers also showed significant improvements in their perception of their child, martial relationships, mutual support, male involvement, and a significant reduction in violence. Specific to the postpartum testing, families significantly improved in parenting skills, parental supervision, developmental expectations, perception of child, and bonding/interacting with the child, as well as a reduction in abuse/neglect. While this study does not provide cause-and-effect analysis, the results are promising for FBP to help improve factors related to family resiliency in the face of risk factors such as poverty and teenage parenthood.  

  1. ^ See Kilburn & Cannon (2017).  The study was conducted as an independent randomized controlled trial. Participants included the primary caregivers and their first-born children and caregivers that were pregnant with their first child. Data was collected through interviews with the families that assessed demographics, family background, child health, maternal health, parenting practices, and other outcomes.  
  2. ^ See de la Rosa et al., (2005). The program evaluation was conducted using a nonexperimental design in which they had one non-experimental group that completed pre- and post-measures. The study population included mothers in a rural community who were pregnant with their first child or were raising their first child. The authors focused on evaluating possible improvements in certain domains tied to family resiliency. The Revised North Carolina Family Assessment Scale was used for data collection.   

Researched Population

  • First time pregnant women 
  • Families raising their first child  
  • Medicaid eligible (low-income) 
  • Racially/ethnically diverse (including Hispanic/ESL) 
  • Diverse family formations (cohabiting, separated, divorced, etc.) 
  • Child ages ranged from prenatal to 36 months (3 years)

Clearinghouse and Compendium References

National Home Visiting Resource Center- rated Emerging

Kilburn, M. R., & Cannon, J. S. (2017). Home visiting and use of infant health care: A randomized clinical trial. Pediatrics, 139(1). https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-1274 

De la Rosa, I. A., Perry, J., Dalton, L. E., & Johnson, V. (2005). Strengthening families with first-born children: Exploratory story of the outcomes of a home visiting intervention. Research on Social Work Practices, 15(5), 323-338. https://www.doi.org/10.1177/1049731505277004



Local Partnerships Currently Implementing

Local Partnerships in purple have adopted First Born. Local Partnership contact information can be found here.