Empowering First-time, low-income mothers.

Each year in South Carolina, one in five children are born to first-time, low-income mothers, putting those families at risk for a number of dramatic health, education and economic disparities.

In response to this need, the public sector and private funders came together in 2008 to launch Nurse-Family Partnership® (NFP) in South Carolina. Our program was implemented by McLeod in 2014, serving Florence, Darlington, Dillon, and Marlboro Counties. In 2016, the program expanded to Chesterfield County and then to Clarendon and Sumter Counties in 2019.

The McLeod NFP Team consists of two nurse supervisors, 12 nurse home visitors, and two administrative support staff. The team currently serves 315 families throughout its service area, with more than 24,000 completed home visits since the program launched.

NFP’s mission is to empower first-time mothers to successfully change their lives and the lives of their children through evidence-based nurse home visiting.

NFP nurses work closely with eligible mothers starting early in pregnancy and continuing until the child turns two years old. Through regular home visits, nurses work to achieve the following main program goals, among other milestones:

• Improve pregnancy outcomes by helping women engage in good preventative health practices, including getting prenatal care, improving their diet, and reducing their use of cigarettes, alcohol and illegal substances.
• Improve child health and development by helping parents provide responsible and competent care.
• Improve the economic self-sufficiency of the family by helping parents develop a vision for their own future, plan future pregnancies, continue their education, and find work.

NFP is one of the oldest and most thoroughly evaluated nurse home visitation programs in the nation.

Results from the McLeod NFP Team have shown that:

• 75 percent of NFP mothers initiated breastfeeding at birth and 10 percent continue to breastfeed at six months.
• 93 percent of babies were born full term.
• 90 percent of NFP mothers had no subsequent pregnancies at program completion (2.5 years). Comparatively, in a national study of low-income mothers, 39 percent of pregnancies occurred within 18 months of a previous birth.
• 92 percent of mothers who entered the program without a high school diploma or GED are working to obtain one.
• 100 percent of NFP infants were on target developmentally and 98 percent of infants have all immunizations up-to-date per age.

The expansion of NFP to Chesterfield, Clarendon and Sumter Counties is supported by private philanthropy. The program’s expansion to Florence, Darlington, Dillon and Marlboro Counties is supported by a public-private partnership that includes the Children’s Trust of South Carolina, the McLeod Health Foundation, Boeing South Carolina and the C.W. and Dorothy Love Foundation.

NFP now serves families in 32 South Carolina Counties.

To learn more about NFP services and eligibility, please call (843) 777-6495.