C12042: Family Spirit Program: Family Strengthening for Native American CommunitiesNovelty:
The invention is a method designed in the form of home visiting intervention program to support young Native American Indian women during pregnancy and 3 years post-partum.
Value Proposition:
The Family Spirit Program is an evidence-based and culturally tailored home visiting intervention program for educating both American Indian mothers and infants. The home visit based training is carried out by Native American Indian paraprofessionals, who are well-versed with the culture and traditions of Native American Indians. The benefits of Family Spirit Program are as follows:
• Increase in parenting knowledge and skills thereby promoting life and behavioral outcomes of both parents and children across their lifespan..
• Amelioration of maternal psychosocial risks such as substance abuse, behavioral dysfunctions, poor education and employment and inadequate life skills.
• Promotion of optimal physical, cognitive, social/emotional development of children from 0 to 5 years.
• Linking of families to community services for obtaining several social and economic benefits.
Technical Details:
Johns Hopkins researchers have devised a method called the 'Family Spirit Program' designed to provide support to vulnerable Native American Indian (AI) women aged between 12 and 22 from pregnancy to 3 years post-partum. This program employs Native American paraprofessionals as home visitors for imparting an effective evidence-based and culturally tailored intervention. The program consists of up to 39-months of in-home training that has been designed, implemented and rigorously evaluated by Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health in partnership with the Navajo, White Mountain Apache, and San Carlos Apache Tribes since 1995. Hence through this program, parents gain knowledge and skills to achieve optimum development for their infant children across the domains of physical, cognitive and social-emotional development, school readiness and self-help. The training sessions also target substance abuse prevention, goal setting, communication, coping and problem solving skills for parents.
Looking for Partners:
To impart this program to Native American Indian population with the assistance of various Non-Profit organizations.
Stage of Development:
Randomized trials
Data Availability:
Randomized trials
Publications/Associated Cases:
Walkup, J. T., Barlow, A., Mullany, B. C., Pan, W., Goklish, N., Hasting, R.. Reid, R. (2009). Randomized controlled trial of a paraprofessional-delivered in-home intervention for young reservation-based American Indian mothers. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 48(6), 591-601.
