Many times throughout the years we hear from folks who have supported Healthy Families America in various ways and from folks who provide home visiting.  Here are just a few of their stories:

Orlando Sentinel Letter to the Editor, Sunday, January 22, 2012, Healthy Families Successful

I was pleased to read the Sentinel's editorial endorsement of Healthy Families Florida ("Grim accounting") on Friday. When the program was established about 15 years ago, then-Senate President Toni Jennings and I agreed that prevention of child abuse was not only good for the well-being of Florida's most-vulnerable children, but it would also save thousands of dollars in the budget.

Providing parents a voluntary program to keep their children safe from abuse and strengthen their families is a win-win opportunity. The research on effectiveness proves that Healthy Families saves lives and saves dollars. I am so pleased with the progress this program has achieved and look forward to its continued success.
U.S. Rep. Daniel Webster
R-Winter Garden

Rockford, IL Desarae, Family Support Worker

I first started working for the HFA program through Easter Seals Teen Family Support in July 2008.  This is my first professional job, and first as a home visitor, so I have been home visiting for 3 years now.  I became interested in home visiting when I was in college.  I had many trials and tribulations in my life growing up, working in dead end jobs and was not sure what I was going to do with my life.  I became a young, single mom and decided I needed to go back to school to improve my child’s and my life.  I attended Northern Illinois University with my daughter in tow, and graduated with a GPA of 3.7, majoring in Sociology and with a minor in Women’s Studies.  I knew during my studies that I wanted to work with young mothers who like me, had the potential to improve their lives, but just needed positive encouragement.

What I like most about HFA is that we are an intensive, home-based program.  I love being able to visit a family week after week, building that relationship that is based on trust and understanding.  Some families that I visit have never had anyone reliable in their lives, and I am able to show them, by coming back day after day, week after week, month after month, that they can rely on me.  I love being able to share information so that one day the moms can tell me that they don’t need me anymore, because I have provided them the tools to succeed on their own.  I love watching the families grow from insecure parents to confident and loving mommies and daddies.  I love when I have been visiting a family for a year or two and the child runs to me, calling my name.  I love everything I do and everything this program stands for. 

I would want parents to know that HFA is an amazing program!  The parents can learn so much from programs like this.  The work we do focuses on child development, bonding, setting and achieving personal goals, and sometimes it is just nice to hear from someone else that they are doing a wonderful job.  To the families I serve, I would want them to know that I appreciate them so much.  Not only are they allowing me into their homes, but they also teach me so much in return. 

I would want the funders to know that these programs are critical for reducing child abuse.  I never knew of programs like this when I was struggling to raise my daughter alone.  There were times that I thought I was alone in my feelings of frustration and anxiety.  I show my clients that they aren’t alone, and that what they are feeling and experiencing is normal and healthy, which in turn provides their children with a normal and healthy childhood.  Programs like this help children be just that, children.

Orange, IA Home Visitor

My name is Julia S.  I am a public health nurse/Healthy Family home visitor with Community Health Partners. l have been working with the Healthy Family program for the past three years.

I became interested in working with young families after raising our own five girls. I felt young families were needing leaders and role models to follow, someone to gently guide them down a healthy path for themselves and their new babies. The curriculum  assisted me in this process and opened the doors for wonderful questions and great discussions from the new parents I visited.

Working at getting the families to trust me and allowing me into their home is both a challenge and one of my delights in being a Healthy Family Worker. I love to see the faces of their children when I praise them for walking, imitating my words and for the huge accomplishment of being potty trained. Entering the home of my clients and hearing a target child say my name is the best repayment  for my time and efforts that any Healthy Family Worker could ask for. Plus,1 get to top this off by praising the parents for the wonderful job they are doing. So many parents have never been told that they are good at something and they beam with pride with any "pat on the back" sent their way.

Healthy Families America is an evidence based program and that rates number one in my eyes as a nurse. l would not feel comfortable going into homes teaching without a strong research base to back up my conversations with families. That has helped me gain confidence and become a better home visitor.

When asked what I like best about my families, I can answer by saying "watching them grow" in both their parenting and in their relationships with others. When I connect them with a service and they follow through, young parents start to feel empowered, self-assured and become mature in the process.

Parents need to know that HFA has a long history or working with parents and has the following goals:           

• To systematically reach out to parents to offer resources and support

• To cultivate the growth of nurturing, responsive, parent-child relationships

• To promote healthy childhood growth and development

• To build the foundations for strong family functioning

HFA is assisting families to raise our next generation of teachers, nurses, doctors, engineers, politicians....and most important our next generation of PARENTS. Why wouldn't we want to pour money into an established, research based organization that is doing all that?

Florida Healthy Families Orange is supported by the Orlando Sentinel Family Fund Holiday Campaign. December 2011

Sometimes, especially around the holidays, the stress and strain of not having enough money to pay your light bill, let alone buy Christmas presents, make you want to scream.

Literally. At your situation. At your spouse. And, worst of all, at your kids.

"We all need somebody to lean on, to help us, to tell us where to go and what to do," says Amy Williams, a single mother of two who barely can make ends meet. "Marilee is that person for me. She is like my Christmas angel."

Williams is talking about Marilee Browne, a caseworker for Healthy Families Orange, which aims to prevent child abuse by teaching parents how to be parents — right from the time they leave the hospital with their newborn. Healthy Families Orange is one of the nonprofit agencies supported by the Orlando Sentinel Family Fund Holiday Campaign.

Too many times in today's rotten economic climate, parents take out their financial frustrations on their children. And it's not always physical abuse but neonatal negligence and educational ignorance.

Just read these testimonials from a couple of the mothers at Health Families Orange, and you will get the idea.

"My mother died, and my son was born. When I first held him, I cried tears of joy but also grief. I felt so alone and so unprepared to be a mom. ... When my caseworker Mary came into our lives, she gave me hope and encouragement. She's made such a huge difference in my life, and my baby's life."

"I was only 16 when I found out I was pregnant. I had no idea what to expect or how a baby would change my life. I never even baby-sat. My caseworker Terry has been a godsend. My son is almost 3 now, and Terry has been there with us every step of the way."

What an incredibly simple and economically worthwhile concept: Prevent child abuse before it actually happens.

Healthy Families Orange works with parents from the time babies are born until they reach 5 years old.
According to national statistics, 90 percent of brain development occurs during the first five years of life, when abuse and neglect are most likely to occur. Parents, naturally, play an ultraimportant role in promoting optimal development during these decisive first five years of their child's life.

"Parent-child interaction is so important in the early years of a child's life," says Lana Adkins, a clinical supervisor at Healthy Families Orange. "If you can create good parenting skills from the beginning, you will alleviate so many potential future problems in the child's life."

Amy Williams has seen the benefits. She and her two children, 8-year-old daughter Amariah and 2-year-old son Amante, live in a small apartment in a subsidized housing complex near Parramore. She works as an order clerk in a warehouse and often struggles to put food in her children's mouths and clothes on their backs.

Healthy Families Orange shows her the resources and assistance available to her. Marilee, her caseworker, tells her where she can find government-assisted child care, where to find inexpensive food and clothing, where and how to fill out an application for employment.

She also mentors Amy on what to avoid, such as the predatory lending establishments on the Internet. Amy got a $500 loan from one of these places not long ago and a few months later was expected to pay back $1,000.

"When I am down and depressed, Marilee is like my trampoline to help me jump back into the race," Amy says. "When I had nowhere else to go, she was there. When I was down to my last strand of sanity, she told me, 'You can't give up. Everything is going to turn out fine.' I've been so blessed to have her in my life."

Sometimes, Christmas angels don't have wings to fly down and deliver a heavenly message.  Sometimes, they show up driving an old Chevy with a much-needed box of diapers in the back seat.