Healthy Beginnings

Healthy Beginnings coordinates a variety of services to families such as medical care access, information on nutrition, childbirth education, breastfeeding support, home visits, help with parent-child bonding, screening for child development, counseling, assessing school readiness and referrals to other services as needed. The Healthy Beginnings system seeks to improve the outcomes of birth, child abuse/neglect and school readiness for families who enter its services.

The Healthy Beginnings system implements six strategies that establish a foundation for a comprehensive service delivery model. These strategies include:

1. A systems approach to build cross-agency relationships, improve service delivery and practice, thus increasing clients' access to culturally-sensitive and developmentally-appropriate services;
2. Implementation of evidence-based or promising programs to provide families access to services that have proven their ability to attain client-level outcomes;
3. Professional development opportunities to provide services staff with the necessary learning opportunities that will help them better engage with families and provide high-quality services;
4. Social marketing to create awareness, educate, and create a shift in positive behaviors toward prenatal care, maternal health, postnatal care, and positive child development;
5. A common client information system...to collect the necessary data for data-informed decision making, and to share information across system members to provide continuity of care for Healthy Beginnings clients; and,
6. Data-informed decision making to inform strategic management and planning decisions, based on data collected on services operating within the HB System.

Funded by Children's Services Council of Palm Beach County, the Healthy Beginnings program is offered throughout Palm Beach County, FL to pregnant women, babies and families with young children.

Through prevention and early intervention efforts, the Healthy Beginnings Program provides opportunities for children and families to optimize birth, early childhood and family outcomes in a supportive community.

The Healthy Beginnings system has implemented a number of evidence-based programs, each have
received positive results through independent study. A recent analysis of eight key birth indicators shows a marked improvement in the county between 2005 and 2010.

In 2008 in Palm Beach County, 2,490 pregnant women received prenatal care services through Healthy Beginnings. Compared to the overall population, these women were more often of high risk, minorities, and spoke a language other than English as their primary language. Futhermore, the women in this program were more likely to have not graduated high school or be a teen mother.

Birth outcomes of mothers in this program were close to or better than those of the general population. Since the program population has a greater range of risk factors than the general population, the Healthy Beginnings program is beginning to generate positive impacts in Palm Beach County.