By: Hannah Miller, RN, PHN, CLC, LCCE, Parent Child Health Nurse at Sawtooth Mountain Clinic

What if you knew that a nurse could come alongside you in your pregnancy and first years of parenting, to build a partnership enhancing your confidence and satisfaction, to honor your family’s growth and transformations? Suppose you learned that there was a way to afford nutritious foods and find how to leverage them to nourish your child’s early years? What if you had a resource to share with a friend who is thinking about growing a family, but unsure of the care landscape? Another friend, working through challenges with feeding their baby, experiencing a loss, or navigating mental health challenges in a transitional time? Consider yourself informed!

Parent-Child Health programs at Sawtooth Mountain Clinic, whether you know them by name as Family Home Visiting, WIC Supplemental Nutrition Program, Lactation Support, WIC Breastfeeding Peer Counseling, Follow Along, or Children and Youth with Specific Health Needs, these services are here for you and your neighbors. Additionally, these services are supported by the public, in the form of state and federal grants and local tax-levy, making them free to access.

And who am I to do this work? I could not have imagined, digging in the dirt as a budding horticulturalist, that I would later know the earth to take back a mother’s stillborn child, that I’d come alongside in her grief and healing as her nurse and teach her to suppress the milk she had hoped to feed. I could not have imagined, learning to speak French and Spanish and eventually majoring in German, that learning to hear the subtleties of human expression would later give me the fluency to listen reflectively to the concern of every parent in my care. Now, as Parent Child Health Nurse in Cook County, Minnesota, with five years’ experience in this role, there is plenty left unimagined. This, after all, is one of the delights of being a nurse; human development is infinitely varied in its unfolding, and one never knows what unique family situation will open an avenue for learning and growth. In this role, I get to see the unimagined unfold, and I get to support the imaginative, aspirational work of growing families.

While some families prefer only a brief contact or two, long-term relationships with families through WIC and home visiting can last from the period of expectancy until a child’s fifth birthday. In this context, I have a uniquely potent opportunity to connect families to the robust pre-and postnatal care available at our community health center, while helping navigate shared care with regional birth services. Learning of a mental health challenge, I can equip families with tools to cope with the same visit as assisting in scheduling timely expert care. Anyone can share information about food pantries, clothing swaps, diaper banks, and financial assistance, but it is only inside the relationship, however, that we might find the right resource for the right moment and use the synergy of partnership to overcome what’s standing in the way.

“You deserve the same access to care as someone who lives in town,” I might say to a patient who has revealed that a home visit will require me to ski down an unplowed road. Access to care means accommodating the geography, schedules, technology, and caregiving demands of families in Cook County. It’s knowing that my work is directly linked to higher parenting satisfaction, improved utilization of community resources, strong parent-child attachment, and protective positive childhood experiences that keeps me wanting to travel every distance and bridge every disconnect.

To connect with Hannah and Parent Child Health Nurse services, call the Clinic at 218-387-2330 ext 121 or email [email protected]. You can also visit sawtoothmountainclinic.org/healthy-families.

Learn more about the Parent / Child programs and other community health services offered in partnership between Sawtooth Mountain Clinic and Cook County Public Health and Human Services at the April 16 PHHS Board Meeting. A recording is available on the Cook County website at www.co.cook.mn.us.

County Connections is a column on timely topics and service information from your Cook County government. Cook County – Supporting Community Through Quality Public Service.