Scrap Booking in Home Visitation Programs: Recognizing goal achievement and developmental milestones

The Southern New Jersey Perinatal Cooperative (SNJPC) is the licensed Maternal Child Health Consortium serving the seven counties of southern New Jersey. Two direct service programs supported by SNJPC are Nurse Family Partnership, serving first time mothers in Camden NJ and Healthy Families, serving families in the greater Atlantic City NJ area. Clients in these programs have participated in scrap-booking events that are designed to enhance the programs' curricula and reinforce the importance of goal setting and goal attainment in improving their families' lives.

During home visits or at parent group meetings, when a parent recognizes an infant cue or a developmental milestone, staff take a picture illustrating this achievement. Program staff members assist parents and provide materials to make colorful scrapbook pages with the photos to highlight the cue or milestone.

Individualized family support plans assist parents in setting measurable goals to improve the quality of their lives. When a parent meets a goal, a memento or picture representative of the goal is placed in their scrapbook.

For many of the programs' participants this is a rare opportunity to recognize themselves for a positive achievement and serves as a model for responding to their children's milestones. Although the scrapbooking started with only a few participants, word of mouth has resulted in additional mothers in these programs asking to come to the scrapbooking events.