Empowering mothers: Parent education and support groups to promote infant/toddler health and development

A community health center serving Asian immigrants and refugees has established parent education and support groups designed to empower parents to promote the health and development of their infants and toddlers. Funded by a HRSA/MCHB Healthy Tomorrows Partnership for Children grant, the Empowering Mothers Initiative seeks to improve parenting capacity and support networks, and to connect families to the health-related resources, including pediatric and prenatal health care services. This program targets Burmese refugees, Mongolian immigrants, and adolescent parents who are either pregnant or parenting children ages 0-3 years. This program approaches pediatric anticipatory guidance/health education in several novel ways. One is cultural/linguistic adaptation: The curriculum for the parent groups, based on American Academy of Pediatrics Bright Futures guidelines and the Nurturing Parenting Program (an evidence-based parenting curriculum), has been adapted to the target populations. Another is the group visit format: rather than relying exclusively on one-on-one clinical encounters, regular group meetings develop mutual peer support, draw upon parents' own knowledge and experience, and also encourage parents to apply lessons in preventing illness and injury and promoting child development. Finally, community health workers/navigators drawn from the community help to provide health education, interpretation, and improved access to both primary health care and other health-related social services (e.g., WIC). This model may be further developed to provide routine well child care through group visits, and to improve care coordination for emerging refugee and immigrant groups within a family-centered medical home.