The NEFL Nurse-Family Partnership program celebrated 51 families at a drive-thru graduation on October 2 at UF Health Jacksonville. The families — two-year old children and their mothers — are graduates of the evidence-based home-visiting program that ensures local moms have the education and resources to have a healthy baby.

NFP program launched in Jacksonville in 2012 as part of the Florida  Maternal, Infant, Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program. NFP provides intensive case management and home visiting by specially-trained nurses from UF Health Jacksonville for first-time moms from pregnancy until the baby is two. The program has since expanded and now serves approximately 200 high-risk, first-time mothers in Baker and Duval counties.

The NFP model has been identified as successfully impacting key outcomes in maternal and child health; child maltreatment; child development; school readiness; family socio-economic status; and injuries, crime and domestic violence. A long-term study recently published in the JAMA Pediatrics journal showed participants in the program are less likely to experience child and maternal mortality.