On August 1, 20 two-year-old children joined a growing group of toddlers that have completed the Nurse-Family Partnership, an evidence-based home-visiting program that helps ensure first-time mothers have the education and resources to have a healthy baby.

The graduates are enrollees in the Nurse-Family Partnership program, which launched in 2012 as part of the Florida Maternal, Infant, Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program. The program, which is integrated into the local Healthy Start program, provides intensive case management and home visiting by a nurse for first-time moms from pregnancy until the baby is two.

Services are provided to 100 high-risk, first-time mothers in the New Town Success Zone and two other neighborhoods annually by specially trained nurses from the Florida Department of Health Duval County and UF Health Jacksonville. The Northeast Florida Healthy Start Coalition administers the program.