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Not all families can receive the same duration of service through the Welcome
Baby program. The Welcome Baby curriculum goes up to 36 months of age, and those
families who are served by volunteers and staff from the United Way ‘wing’ can receive
monthly visits for up to three years, if they so choose. Only a small percentage of
families are actually involved for the full three years; many families receive 4 or 5
monthly visits, and a significant number receive 11 or 12 visits. In comparison, those
families served by nurses and Outreach Workers from the Utah County Health
Department are only eligible for service for roughly the first 12 months of their child’s
life. This is because the Health Department’s resources are limited and staff must make
room in their caseload for new families. In these 12 months of service, Health
Department staff work to ensure that infants are developing on schedule, parents have
grasped basic infant development and parenting information, and families have been
connected to any other needed services.
6.2.8 New Directions and Future Plans
Welcome Baby strives to offer parents various ways to access support and
information. Indeed, at the time of this study, for United Way of Utah County and the
Utah County Health Department, the overall goal was to develop and implement a
system that supports the healthy development of each child in Utah County. As one
staff member described:
Basically Welcome Baby, when it started up ten years ago, the vision of it was to
have kind of a system in place for families ... Our whole purpose was if we
universalize and we take the stigma out of getting help, then we are more likely
to get everyone kind of coming into that net.
One aspect of this system is the 2010 launch of a telephone- and web-based
initiative, “Help Me Grow.” Help Me Grow builds on two existing local services – the
211 Community Information Line and individual community-based paediatricians 17 – in
17 In the U.S., most children – including those with no health conditions – see a
paediatrician as their primary care provider.
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