To Alisa Alcorn and her baby son, Eleazar, it doesn’t matter which agency employs Erika Boyd. What matters is that Boyd, a public health nurse, cares about the young family. What matters is that Boyd shows up.
Boyd showed up Thursday, as she does regularly. She spent more than an hour at the
mobile home in rural Snohomish where Alcorn, 16, and 13-month-old Eleazar Alcorn-Cabrera live with the baby’s paternal grandmother.
Sitting on the floor with Eleazar, the nurse and the teen talked about breast feeding challenges as the baby gets more teeth. Alcorn told Boyd she has been doing homework for Leaders in Learning, an alternative school in Monroe. Later on the misty afternoon, Boyd took a short walk with the mom and toddler.
Boyd works for the Nurse-Family Partnership, which until early this month was operated by the Snohomish Health District. A national nonprofit program, it’s been in Snohomish County since 1999. The program is for low-income young mothers and mothers to be who are 21 years old or younger.
They are helped by nurses during weekly and biweekly visits to their homes. Visits begin at 24 weeks of pregnancy and continue until a child turns 2.
With the Nurse-Family Partnership’s funding soon to run out, the program could have faced extinction. Instead, the program — including four nurses — has a new home. The Little Red School House last week started managing the Nurse-Family Partnership.
“We already use a home-visiting model. As we learned more about Nurse-Family Partnership, we saw how closely aligned it is with the work we were already doing,” said Terry Clark, executive director of nonprofit Little Red School House. The Everett-based agency primarily serves young children with or at risk of developmental delays or disabilities.
As part of the health district, the program has been paid for by county tax money, specifically a one-10th of 1 percent tax to pay for mental health and drug and alcohol programs. In 2011, that totaled $509,107, according to Gina Veloni, Nurse-Family Partnership program manager.
Veloni, who made the switch from the health district to Little Red School House, said Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon’s budget recommended a smaller amount, $386,000, to pay for the program in 2012. Approval of that by the County Council isn’t certain, Veloni said.
Clark said that as a nonprofit, “we can go after funding streams the health district didn’t have access to.”
That means grants and donations. “The need is quite high. It will be a job worth doing,” Clark said.
Little Red School House will run the program as a subcontractor until the end of the year, and fully take over Jan. 1.
“This year we’ve been serving 70 families,” Veloni said. For some young mothers, “establishing a relationship with this nurse over two and a half years is the first time they’ve had someone consistent in their lives,” she said. “It’s someone they can count on — and they do.”
Although she shoulders a mother’s responsibilities, Alcorn is still a girl. Raised in White Swan, near Yakima, she lost her father to cancer in 2006. “My dad, he was always there for me,” she said. Alcorn said her mother has not been involved in her life.
She lived in several different homes with siblings, but said she ran away from the last home. That’s when she met Eleazar’s father. Alcorn lives with his mother, who is now her foster mother. She said her baby’s father is not in the picture.
“When I got pregnant it changed my whole life around. I want to give my baby a good life,” Alcorn said.
Boyd checks on the baby’s development, on the mother-child bond, and on how Alcorn is taking care of herself. “I’m role-modeling what a healthy relationship can look like,” the nurse said.
Hurdles to success can be enormous, Veloni said. Some young mothers have moved 10 times over the two and a half years they’re in the program. With affordable housing a huge issue, some mothers and babies stay on friends’ couches. Some live in cars. “Wherever they go, we go,” Veloni said.
There are mothers in the program who have been involved in the juvenile justice system, and many have histories of substance abuse, Veloni said.
Research trials over many years have shown benefits of the Nurse-Family Partnership, including improved child health and safety and more schooling and job opportunities for mothers, Veloni said.
“We work with them where they are, figure out what is important to them, and make changes in their lives,” Veloni said.
“I see it as serving two generations — sometimes three, if the parents of the mom are involved,” Clark said. “These very young moms, some as young as 14, it helps them grow into this role very quickly. And it’s helping those babies off to a great start.”
Asked about her own dreams, Alcorn said she would like to work with children.
“It’s good to have someone around who supports you. My whole life is about my son,” Alcorn said.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460, muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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