Families are the basic building blocks of our community.  And because every community can only be as strong as its foundation, it stands to reason that we need healthy families to create a safe and healthy environment in which our children can play, learn, and grow into caring and successful adults.

As our name makes clear, Hampton Healthy Families Partnership is a team effort in which city and community agencies have joined together with public and private organizations such as hospitals, restaurants, businesses, and banks to help the families in our community become healthy, happy, and self sufficient.  Through home visitation, parenting classes, newsletters, library resource centers, and a variety of other programs, the Partnership works to ensure that every child in Hampton is born healthy and enters schools ready to learn.

Young Family Centers, in each branch of the Hampton Public Library, offer information on child development, parent-child interaction and related topics. Funding to create and maintain these centers is through a federal grant, Friends of the Library and civic organizations. Coordinated and managed by existing library staff, the collections have achieved full-scale operation with a total check-out rate of over 15,000 per year.

The Healthy Stages Newsletter, available to all Hampton residents with children 5 years old and younger, is sent starting 3 months of age and continues until the child’s fifth birthday. Sentara Hampton General Hospital funded the development and printing of the newsletters. Each newsletter contains information on how to nurture the child and parent, developmental milestones, age appropriate activities for the child, immunizations due, safety tips and other important parenting information. Current circulation reaches the families of 5,000 children, with a goal of reaching the families of all 12,500 young children in Hampton.

Parent Education Classes. The Healthy Families Partnership is where children and the adults who care for them make new discoveries about each other by exploring, playing and learning together…and apart. We offer ongoing support to parents and other caregivers through a wide range of programs, workshops and activities that focus on all stages of child development-from prenatal care to the challenging teenage years.

Program Conferences. The Healthy Families Partnership conference will benefit community and government leaders and practitioners in health, government, early child care and education, family preservation and support, business and others who want the community to work together to make a difference for children.

Fatherhood

Playgroups.  

Children learn through play.  Of course, they also have a lot of fun.  To give families a chance to enjoy time together in a safe and pleasant environment, the partnership offers a variety of organized groups including infant massage and stimulation classes, free play, arts and crafts and circle time, where parent and their young children join together in music and movement.

Our play groups, open to all Hampton families, are designed to introduce parents to positive ways to play with and to stimulate their young children while offering plenty of opportunity for social interaction, which helps boost both a child's self-esteem and emotional maturity.

LAMB (Labor and My Baby)

A baby is a bundle of joy. But there's no denying that expectant parents can be a bundle of nerves at the thought of all the unknowns that lie ahead. This 12 week prenatal program will not only calm your fears and prepare you for the challenges-and delights-of parenthood, but will also provide instruction on prepared child birth through LAMB.

Welcome Baby

...and welcome parents to a new world of daily joys, frequent challenges, and ever-changing responsibilities.  To help ease your way into this happy, bustling place, a member of Healthy Families Partnership team will bring you and your new baby a Welcome Baby backpack overflowing with free gifts and information about growth and developmental milestones and community resources that you can turn to when you need assistance.

One of our favorite backpack features is the "Welcome Baby" journal, a slim, pocket-sized book where you can record all the information you will ever need to fill out your child's medical forms, school registrations, or day care applications.  Keep the journal up-to-date and keep it handy, and you'll always be prepared when a shot record, Social Security number or current photo is required.

As for the backpack?  Use it as an easy-to-tote diaper bag while turning to the information inside as a map to help you navigate the exciting, extraordinary and (we admit it) exhausting world of parenthood.