More than 40 community-based prenatal and newborn home visitors participated in an interagency N-TOUCH training on May 10 that builds on the latest information about how best to prepare children to learn. Staff from Healthy Start, Nurse Family Partnership, Healthy Families and Early Head Start were in attendance.

N-TOUCH is an evidence-based approach to human potential designed to transfer knowledge of newborn development from published research findings to community-based parent educators to benefit newborns and their families. Participants received training and materials to enhance their work with families in transition to parenting to address the developmental trajectory that begins before birth.

Pathways critical to the development of language, vision, hearing and emotional response — the foundations of all future learning — reach their peak by the child’s first birthday, creating an important “4th trimester.”

The training is part of an N-TOUCH pilot project that was tied in with the release of the Jacksonville Community Council, Inc.’s (JCCI) Children 1-2-3: Early Learning for Future Success report. The project is funded by the Chartrand Foundation and coordinated by Baptist Health. The training was a partnership Baptist Health, the Jacksonville Children’s Commission, the Chartrand Foundation and the Healthy Start Coalition.

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