Healthy Baby Healthy Child

The Healthy Baby Healthy Child (HBHC) program provides free home visits for pregnant and parenting families in Boston.

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The Healthy Baby Healthy Child program provides home visits for pregnant and parenting families. Families must be residents of Boston with a child under five years old. All services are free, voluntary and confidential.

You are eligible for Healthy Baby/Healthy Child services if you:

Are pregnant or the father of an expectant baby
Have a child between the ages of birth to 5
Live in the City of Boston

For more information, contact:

Becky Cruz Crosson
1010 Massachusetts Ave.

Annex

Boston, MA 02118
phone: 617-534-5832

Toll-free: 800-711-1180

Fax: 617-534-5355
hbhc@bphc.org

What services will I receive?

Health Education
Nutrition
Prenatal Education
Breastfeeding Counseling
Family Planning
Injury Prevention

Parenting Education
Child Assessment and Education
Short term mental health counseling
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) Grief Counseling
Early Childhood Education

Programs

Welcome Family

Welcome Family is a newborn home visit pilot program. The home visit is free, confidential, and voluntary. Multilingual public health nurses conduct home visits. The program aims to improve population-wide health and wellbeing. Goals include:

increase parental skills, knowledge, and self-confidence
improve maternal and infant health and wellbeing
increase participant access to community based maternal, infant, and family health services, and
improve coordination of community resources and support.

Shirley's Pantry

Shirley's Pantry provides emergency food assistance to HB/HC clients and Boston residents. The address is:

213 River Street

Mattapan, MA 02126

Phone: 617-534-2032

Hours: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from 10 a.m. - 3 p.m.

Summer Enrichment Program

The Summer Enrichment Program operates one day a week from July through August. It offers enriching educational and recreational programming. It aims to reduce social isolation, provide health and wellness education, and engage families in recreational activities.

Father Friendly

This initiative provides individual case management services that promote father involvement and family engagement. It is available for any father living in the City of Boston, especially male partners of women enrolled in HB/HC and Boston Healthy Start Initiatives. The goal is to strengthen families by providing men with support for engaged fatherhood.

Father Friendly

Special Collaborations

MA Center for Unexpected Infant and Child Death

The Massachusetts Center for Sudden Infant Death Syndrome/Massachusetts Infant and Child Death Bereavement Program is located at the Boston Medical Center. The SIDS Center is responsible for coordinating services to families throughout Massachusetts whose babies and young children (0-3 years) have died suddenly and unexpectedly from sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), sudden unexpected infant death(SUID), miscarriage, stillbirth and other causes of infant mortality.

HB/HC works collaborative with the MA Grief Center and receives referrals from this the SIDS Center to provide culturally competent services during the first year of bereavement. The HB/HC public health nurses and social workers provide grief counseling, support, anticipatory guidance and linkage to available resources.

Healthy Start in Housing

Healthy Start in Housing (HSiH) is a collaborative initiative of The Boston Public Health Commission and the Boston Housing Authority that helps housing insecure, high risk pregnant and parenting families, with a child under the age of 5 who has a complex medical condition requiring specialty care, to secure and retain housing.

The goals of HSiH are to improved birth outcomes and improved health and wellbeing of women and families. Key strategies include the provision of housing as well as intensive case management aimed housing retention and participant engagement in services and interventions that contribute to participate achievement of their self-identified goals.