Family Nurse Partnership

The Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) programme is a voluntary home visiting service for first time mums, aged 21 years and under, who live in Suffolk.  

Family nurses use programme guidelines, materials and practical activities to work with young parents, including the father and wider family.

For further information visit the Family Nurse Partnership website

A specially trained family nurse works with individual families in their own homes (or a different community location if preferred) delivering an evidenced based programme. The programme works to your individual strengths, supporting and encouraging each person to reach their aspirations for themselves and their babies.

Home visits start during pregnancy and can continue until the child turns two. Throughout the programme journey, young parents and a family nurse will work on of different aspects of the pregnancy and early years together, including parent-child attachment, breastfeeding, immunisation, child development and school readiness.

Dependant on the individual needs, the family nurse will work alongside young parents, helping to improve on things such as self-confidence in themselves and their parenting capacity as well as supporting on other issues such as; mental health and anxiety, support with goal setting, housing and addressing health needs such as stopping smoking.

By supporting families during the pregnancy and early stages of the child’s life, the Family Nurse Partnership programme can help to:

• adapt and deliver a programme with the young parent to meet individual needs
• increase young parents’ chance of a healthy pregnancy
• support preparation for labour
• provide regular developmental reviews for each child
• improve child's development outcomes and school readiness
• support young parents to build positive relationships with their baby and other people
• support young parents to reach their aspirations and plan for their futures
• support young parents to make positive lifestyle choices to give each child the best possible start in life

The Family Nurse will visit regularly during pregnancy and then after the birth until the baby is at least one year old, with the possibility of continuing until the child is 2 years old.  You will still receive  care from your midwife, until they handover to your family Nurse.

Whilst enrolled on the programme the Family Nurse will replace the work of a health visitor. Once the FNP programme stops a joint visit will be arranged between your Family Nurse and an allocated Health Visitor to ensure continuity of care is tailored to specific needs.

Visits from the family nurse are weekly initially, then reduced to fortnightly.

The FNP team accept notifications of pregnancy for mums, aged 21 years and under, who live in Suffolk.  

Developmental Reviews

The NHS explains what to expect at health and development reviews.

Ages and Stages

Ages and Stages Questionnaires (ASQs) are a licensed product used by our staff across the Health and Children's Centres. They help us understand how your child is developing and are just one of the tools we may use during our contact with you.

All children develop differently.  The ASQ are something that we will use together to talk about the things your child is able to do, to think about any concerns you might have and how we can support you and your child with those.

They are split into 5 different areas;

• Communication: Your child’s language skills, both what your child understands and what he or she can say - this can be sounds, babbling or talking.
• Gross Motor: How your child uses their arms and legs for sitting, crawling, walking, running, and other activities.
• Fine Motor: How your child uses their hands and fingers - for example scribbling or picking up food.
• Problem Solving: How your child plays with toys and solves problems.
• Personal-Social: Your child’s self-help skills and how they play and interact with others.

The ASQ we use, is based on the age of your child by month, but we may decide together that this is not right for your child and decide to use a different age or an alternative assessment tool. This is nothing to worry about, we are just making sure we use the right tool for your child. 

You should receive a copy of the ASQ for your child along with your initiation letter.  Where possible, please complete the ASQ and bring it along to your appointment. 

We apologise to those of you who may have been directed to this page to download a copy.   If you need a copy of the ASQ please contact your Family Nurse who will get a copy to you.

You can visit the ASQ webpage to download fun and easy activities to help support your child's development.

The Young Parent’s Pathway is a home visiting voluntary service within the 0-19 Health Visiting service that supports mothers to be under the age of 20 years old, who live in Suffolk. Please click on this link to find out more information about the Young Parent's Pathway.

You can find a wealth of information on the our Health Visiting pages with support and advice for you and your child. This covers a range of health support, including links to other organisations and resources who can support you in your local area. This includes:

• Advice for when your baby or child is ill
• Cost of living support
• Advice for parents of children at specific ages
• Safer Sleep advice
• Accident prevention
• Advice about allergies
• Benefits and tax credits
• Bereavement
• Child care
• Advice for Dads and fathers
• Dental health
• Divorce and separation
• Domestic abuse
• Drug and alcohol misuse
• Maintaining healthy lifestyles
• The Healthy Start Scheme
• Housing support
• Immunisations and Vaccinations
• Infant feeding
• Introducing solids
• Play, learning and development
• Parent wellbeing
• Starting school
• Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND)
• Speech and Language
• Young Parents Pathway

We welcome all kinds feedback from our service users as this helps our learning and service improvement. 

Give us your feedback on the Family Nurse Partnership team

Send us your compliments or complaints about the service you have received from Suffolk County Council

As a service we are regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and as service users, you can provide feedback directly to them. Your feedback may help to inform when, where and what areas of the service to inspect. Please send your feedback about our service to the Care Quality Commission

• Address: Kirkley Children’s Centre, 36 Kirkley Street, Lowestoft, NR33 0LU
• Email: CYP.FNP@suffolk.gov.uk 
• Visit us on our Facebook Page: Family Nurse Partnership Suffolk
• Follow our Twitter account: @FNPSuffolk
• Call us on: 0345 607 8866