Program Empowers Nurses To Help Prevent Child Abuse Pediatrics Professor Gives Presentation To Area Health Professionals

From smoking during pregnancy to child abuse to peer rejection. It all becomes a cycle that perpetuates poverty and prison time, Dr. David Olds says.

Olds, a pediatrics professor at the University of Colorado, presented an intervention program aimed at stopping the cycle on Thursday evening at Sacred Heart Medical Center.

Many health professionals who attended the event hope the program is introduced in Spokane.

The program aligns nurses with first-time pregnant women from low-income families. Nurses visit the expectant mothers to provide guidance varying from medical and child-rearing tips to economic and familyplanning advice.

Unlike similar programs available in Spokane, the nurses continue with the families from pregnancy until the child is 2 years old.

Peggy Slider, a public-health nurse in Spokane, hopes the program is implemented in the area, but said that it should supplement, not replace, programs already run by the Spokane Regional Health District.

“With the David Olds model, it gives us a proven model,” she said.

The program began 23 years ago with 400 families in Elmira, N.Y.

Families in the program - in comparison with another group of families who received health services such as free transportation to medical clinics but no home nurse visitations - had significantly fewer incidents of abuse.

“These kinds of problems can be prevented with the right kind of help at the right time,” Olds said.

Fifteen years after the nurses stopped visiting, children in the program had 69 percent fewer criminal convictions, 58 percent fewer sex partners and were also found to drink less alcohol, Olds said.

“This is not somebody’s hunch. This is thoroughly researched,” said Dr. Kent Hoffman of the Marycliff Institute, a group of psychotherapists that sponsored the presentation. “Why I’m so excited about Dr. Olds is that he says we should not be spending government money without valid research.”

Olds also noted that women in the program are more likely to stay in school and need less welfare.

A financial assessment of the program - completed before welfare reform - found that for every dollar spent on the program, $4 was saved in welfare, criminal justice and other government funds.

The program and research has continued in Memphis and Denver with similar results. With U.S. Justice Department assistance, it has entered 150 communities - including each county in Oklahoma and four communities in Washington.

Olds was brought to town to speak to Support Care and Networking for Families, a Spokane group founded to support better family relationships. He spoke to a group of area leaders at lunch.

Participating communities need funding and strong support from politicians, businesses and religious groups, Olds said. Nurses in the program would be trained at the University of Colorado. The university also would assess the program’s results and give advice.

“If (the community) doesn’t have that kind of support, we think its unlikely to survive in the long run,” he said.