Community Mothers Programme annual report 2012

The Community Mothers Programme is facilitated by the Health Service Executive (HSE), and operates in the HSE areas Dublin North East and Dublin Mid-Leinster. Its aim is to develop the skills of parents of young children with a focus on health care, nutritional improvement and overall child development. It is a parent support programme in which friendly local women known as Community Mothers carry out monthly structured visits by appointment to first-time parents during the first year of their babies’ lives, providing empathy and information in a non-directive way to foster parenting skills and parental self-esteem. Through the Programme the parents become empowered to believe in their own capabilities and skills for parenting without being dependent on professionals. The Family Development Nurses who facilitate the Programme have moved away from the biological model of health care which is working for people, to a model which involves working with people. In fact the model is one of parent-enablement and empowerment which encourages parents to learn to cope with difficulties they encounter in bringing up their children and to find their own solutions to those problems.