Recorded presentation

Brandii Cowboy¹, Novalene Goklish², Pauline Fields², Angela Farnsworth, BS¹, Elena Varipatis, MPH, MSW², Allison Barlow, MA, MPH², Kristen Speakman, MA², Golda Ginsburg, PhD³, and John Walkup, MD³. (1) Center for American Indian Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, PO Box 889, Fort Defiance, AZ 86540, (928) 729-2435, mcabe14@juno.com, (2) Center for American Indian Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, PO Box 1240, Whiteriver, AZ 85941, (3) Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 600 N Wolfe Street, CMSC 312, Baltimore, MD 21287

The Family Spirit (FS) Program, developed in partnership by Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health and the Navajo and White Mountain Apache Tribes, is the first family strengthening program of its size and scope in Indian country designed to meet the unique needs of teen-formed Native American families. The goal of the program is to improve parenting skills, build familial relationships, increase community capacity, and enhance economic independence. The core service strategy is an intensive one-on-one home visiting program beginning by 28 weeks’ gestation that is facilitated by local, indigenous community health workers known as Family Health Educators (FHEs). FHEs relate stories of innumerable challenges with respect to reaching youth—geographically, in terms of navigating rural, dirt roads, and circumstantially, in terms of retaining participants who are often forced to leave the Reservations to find work by providing adequate support and tailoring the curriculum to meet their participants’ needs. Despite the many challenges, the Program’s FHEs have been successful in reaching and improving the lives of their participants—evidenced by evaluation scores related to each of the Program’s four specific aims: (1) to increase parenting knowledge and skills, (2) to improve family relationships, (3) to increase use of community services, and (4) to reduce high-risk behaviors. Specific data will be presented with respect to each aim and FHEs will be on-hand to address specific questions and relay personal anecdotes.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand the challenges Family Health Educators face when trying to reach and recruit Native teen families on Indian reservations in the Southwest
• Describe the successes Family Health Educators have experienced while serving Native teen-formed families.
• Identify methods that Family Health Educators have used to tailor the Family Spirit curriculum to meet the needs of their participants.

Keywords: Community Outreach, Challenges and Opportunities

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I have a significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.
Relationship: Employment

Recorded presentation