Bonkrude appointed to Nurse-Family Partnership

Lynn Volkens

2/03/2005 - County Commissioners recently appointed psychotherapist Sally Bonkrude as representative to the Intermountain Nurse-Family Partnership Program for Gilpin County. Bonkrude, who writes a weekly column for the Gilpin County News, currently provides counseling services at The Place On Dory Hill. Prior to opening her private practice, she worked with the Jefferson Center for Mental Health. Gilpin has a partnership with JCMH to provide services to Gilpin residents.

   The Intermountain Nurse-Family program is part of the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) program founded 20 years ago by Dr. David Olds, affiliated through the University of Colorado Health Science Center and the National Center for Children, Families and Communities. NFP’s goal is to reach out to first-time parents, particularly low-income mothers-to-be, and provide education and support that will enable them to be more successful in caring for their children.

  Participation in the program is completely voluntary. Those who sign up receive home visits from a professional nurse every one or two weeks. The nurse provides pre-natal education to decrease or prevent tobacco, drug and alcohol use during the pregnancy and to identify any health problems along the way. Occurrences of pre-term delivery, low birth-weight, infant neurodevelopment impairment, and child maltreatment and injuries have all been shown to decrease with participation in the program. After the baby’s birth, the nurse continues visits to help with parenting skills, physical care of parent and child, safe home environment, and establishing a support network of family and friends. The visits continue until the child is two years old. During that time, the nurse works with the family to plan for future children so that unplanned subsequent pregnancies don’t derail the family’s goals.

   The nurse also provides information for the family to plan their financial future. The nurse helps the family work toward educational and employment goals. The program has been studied throughout its twenty-year existence among Caucasian mothers in up-state New York, African-American mothers in inner-city Memphis, and among a Denver population of Caucasian, African-American and Hispanic mothers. In all cases, the program has been considered highly effective with positive, productive results. If the family is successful in becoming self-sufficient, they are less likely to be enmeshed in poverty and the welfare system

   The program costs $3,000.00 per year for each participating family. Tobacco Settlement dollars, allocated by the State of Colorado each year, fund the program entirely. Two separate economic evaluations of the program have shown that cost is recovered by the time participating children are four years old. Further, the studies show that by helping these families become self-sufficient and avoiding the costs of State assistance and/or involvement with the judicial system, the costs are returned times four by the time the children reach adolescence.     

   Not every county in Colorado has the program. But, in the 49 that do, nearly 2000 families are receiving home visits, provided by about 100 nurses. Gilpin partners with Lake, Clear Creek and Summit Counties. Carol Vickery, RN, MS is the Nurse Home Visitor assigned to Gilpin County. Gilpin needed someone to attend the quarterly meetings, and to act as liaison for County Commissioners. Commissioner Jeanne Nicholson said she had recommended Bonkrude. Scheduled to attend her first meeting this month, Bonkrude is enthusiastic about playing her part in the program. She believes in this program, she said, and she hopes to get word to the Gilpin community. She plans to do that by having information available at her office and through meeting the public and spreading the word, personally.