Provision of the Australian Nurse-Family Partnership Program National Support Service

The ANFPP is a licenced adaptation of the international Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) from the University of Colorado, developed by Professor David Olds. The ANFPP supports women pregnant with an Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander child through pre-natal care until the child is two years old through sustained nurse-led home visiting. Home visiting teams work to improve health and wellbeing outcomes for Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander children and their families by providing health information specific to the mother and baby, parenting and social support, coordination of health care and through assisting parents and children to access other support services.

The ANFPP is implemented under a Licence Agreement from the University of Colorado and was first implemented in three sites in 2009, before being expanded to 13 sites under the 2014-15 Budget measure, A Better Start to Life.

Since commencement of the program, the Department has engaged an organisation to provide on-the-ground implementation support and national program management for the ANFPP. This organisation has been referred to by a number of names over this time, most recently, the ANFPP National Program Centre. Moving forward, this support organisation will be known as the ANFPP National Support Service.

The ANFPP National Support Service supports the implementation of the program by establishing, and providing ongoing support, to the ANFPP implementing sites. The ANFPP National Support Service also provides home visiting staff with comprehensive and culturally appropriate training. The ANFPP National Support Service’s responsibilities include:

·Monitoring and adherence to the contractual requirements under the ANFPP Licence Agreement between the Department of Health and the University of Colorado.

·Workforce development and education, including supporting recruitment activities to attract staff, supporting program experiences that improve staff retention and delivering an effective training program.

·Monitoring and evaluation, including analysis of data and development of quarterly fidelity reports, quality reviews, annual data reporting and assistance with maintaining the infrastructure required to monitor the program.

·Provision of materials to support the program, including adaptation of existing NFP materials to the Australian context, and development of new materials that will support the implementation of the program.