HEALTHY FAMILIES

Healthy Families mission is to promote child well-being, parent-child bonding, and resilient healthy families through home visiting services.

What is Healthy Families?

Our Mission: To promote child well-being, parent-child bonding, and resilient healthy families through home visiting services.

Our Vision:All children receive nurturing care from their family essential to leading a healthy and productive life.
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Core Values:
  • Valuing Children
  • Strengthening Families
  • Engaging Communities

Program Goals

  • ​Build and sustain community partnerships to systematically engage overburdened families in home visiting services prenatally or at birth
  • Cultivate and strengthen nurturing parent-child relationships
  • Promote healthy childhood growth and development
  • Enhance family functioning by building relationships, reducing risk and building protective factors
  • Educate on healthy pregnancy practices
  • Increase neonatal, infant and early childhood health outcomes (resulting from poor maternal nutrition/prenatal care, substance abuse, child abuse, domestic violence, mental illness, unsafe sleep and environment)
  • Empower parents as their child’s first and most important teacher​

Who does Healthy Families Serve?

Healthy Families serves families during pregnancy and throughout the first three years of a child’s life.  Parents may enroll prenatally or before their baby is 3 months old.  Healthy Families serves approximately 900 families annually in St. Joseph County.

How does an individual or family qualify for an assessment?

Individuals qualify with any one of the following risk factors:
  • Single parent
  • Inadequate income (food stamps, Medicaid or WIC eligible)
  • Primary income is SSDI
If none of these three primary risk factors are present, then any two of the following will qualify a family for assessment:
  • No GED or HS diploma
  • History of/current substance abuse
  • History of/current psychiatric care or depression
  • Marital or family problems
  • Unstable housing