Family Nurse Partnership celebrates another successful year

Tameside’s Family Nurse Partnership celebrated another successful year at their annual review last week. 

The Partnership is a home visiting programme for first-time young mums and families, available from their first scan to the child’s second birthday. 

The families, nurses and partner organisations gathered at Dukinfield Town Hall last Wednesday for a party and to reflect on the past year.

Alison Goodall, a supervisor with the FNP, said: “The past 12 months have been really good; we’ve had an exciting year taking on a new projects. From across the UK, we were chosen to be an early adopter of some changes to the programme  and we’re the only FNP site in Greater Manchester that is doing these changes.”

Changes include a new personalisation structure, which enables the programme to be much more individualised for each parent, while a new assessment tool, Alison says, has proved popular with nurses.

The FNP has also introduced a new structure to look at healthy relationships and domestic abuse; a priority for Tameside. 

Alison said: “We’re doing a lot of targeted interventions now with the families around what a healthy relationship looks like and, if they are in an abusive relationship, how we can help them make those changes. 

“That’s involved a lot of training for the team.”

The theme of this year’s annual review was mindfulness, to tie in with Mental Health Awareness Week. Organisations such as Healthy Minds, Noah’s Art pet therapy, Active Tameside and DadMatters all attended, while activities included pregnancy and baby yoga, music therapy and crafts. 

Alison explained:“The stalls and activities today are about helping the parents to think about themselves and prioritise their own wellbeing.”

To find out more about the Family Nurse Partnership, visit http://fnp.nhs.uk.