The Application of Family Midwives as a nationwide Strategy to Support Families in Psychosocially Burdening Living Conditions: The Federal Initiative of Early Prevention as a Bridge between Health Care and Child and Youth Welfare

Introduction: In 2012, the Federal Initiative for Early Prevention was set up by the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs. The initiative promotes diverse measures to deal with family dysfunction, child maltreatment and... [ view full abstract ]

Introduction: In 2012, the Federal Initiative for Early Prevention was set up by the German Federal Ministry for Family Affairs. The initiative promotes diverse measures to deal with family dysfunction, child maltreatment and maladaptation of children. One of these projects is the implementation of family midwifery care on municipality level.

Method: In order to investigate the effectiveness of the Federal Initiative the National Center on Early Childhood Prevention carried out different studies.

Firstly N= 190 family midwives participated in a two-wave longitudinal online survey. They reported data concerning aspects of everyday life and household, social support, psychosocial burdens a. o. of N=937 families they supported.

Furthermore totally N= 1019 parents were interviewed for assessing the benefit, satisfaction and acceptance of the support by family midwives and other similar health professionals.

Results: The results of the online questionnaire show that support of family midwives can increase parental care and coping with everyday tasks in burdened families. In addition, parents reported a high satisfaction and acceptance of the intervention.

Conclusion: The Federal Initiative for Early Childhood Prevention and the application of family midwives were successful and should be continued and expanded in Germany. As a consequence of the support the parental care and coping strategies for burdened families were increased. Thereby the living and developmental circumstances of young children were improved and the risk of maltreatment and neglect is expected to be reduced. Also family midwives as members of the health care system seemed to be highly accepted by parents. One unanswered question is the effective access to burden families, the determination of an existing need and the implementation of the support (“Quandary of Prevention”). For this purpose new projects in the health care system (e.g. perinatology) should examine the potential for identifying and transiting burden families.