April 14, 2025 • 13 mins
Mikaela and Maria speak with Jeanne Wickliffe, Director, Maternal Infant Home Visiting with The Center for Family Safety and Healing at Nationwide Children’s Hospital.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Top of the five o'clock hour here on What Matters.
So glad you're with us. Mindy is out, Maria Durant
is in and hello, Hello, Hello, hello again. So glad
to have you. You know, and you and I have
had to talk about, you know, issues like this throughout
our careers as journalists. It is National Child Abuse Awareness Month,
(00:20):
and you and I have covered too many stories.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Many of these stories, and there's some of the most
heartbreaking stories that you cover as a journalist, especially as
a mom. You know, I would do interviews and you
can't help think, you know, about your own child or
anybody else's child, and you're doing these interviews, and I
always teared up.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
It was yeah, and then I think about the stories
we didn't tell because we didn't know about them, right right.
You know, we're really fortunate to have Jeanie Wickliffe with us,
who's the director of Maternal Infant Home Visitation for the
Center for Health and Sorry, the Center for Family Safety
and Healing at Nationwide Children's Hospital. And Genie, the work
(01:04):
you do so important. We were getting to know you
a little bit before you came on the air. Thanks
for being with us today.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
We absolutely thank you for giving me this opportunity to
brag a little bit and share some things about what
we do at the center.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
You're making a real impact in the community. Tell people
what your program specifically does.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Specifically, maternal infant home visiting reaches out to. Our target
is first time moms, and we do home visitation. So
we have nurses and social workers that go out into
the home and they do parental.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
Skills. They you know, parenting skills.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
They talk to the pregnant moms about what to expect
throughout their pregnancy, giving them a good realization or a
good picture of what's normal doing pregnancy and what's not normal.
So when they are talking with they're going to their
appointments with their provider, with their physician or their nurse
practitioner or their midwife, they have more information and feel
(02:10):
better about asking questions and sharing their concerns. Often when
women are pregnant, we take things for granted. You know,
it's the first time, and even if it's your second
or third time, each pregnancy is different.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
So the nurse and the social worker.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Do a great job with teaching moms how to advocate
for themselves, how to say to your provider. You know,
I don't understand that I came in and told you
that I was having headaches, but we haven't addressed the headaches.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Can we talk about the headaches?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Because that happens, and I don't it happens, but we
don't think that it's happening because anyone's necessarily being neglectful
or it's intentional. It's just that things A and a
provider's all. The sort of doctor's office is so busy
that sometimes when they see a patient that's pregnant and
(03:05):
they're six months pregnant, there's things that they have on
a check off list, and I need to check those
things off. But once that check off list is checked off,
often that provider is off to the next client or
next patient. So the social workers and the nurses when
they go out into the homes really help moms to
give them the right words scripting, you know, how do
(03:26):
you advocate for yourself? How do you help the provider
understand when I say that I'm having.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
A headache, what does that mean?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Because headaches can lead to other things, can mean other
things that can be serious and impactful for mom and
for the baby.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
And that was just an example.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
So now is it a one time visit or how
how long are you with?
Speaker 4 (03:46):
You know that mom.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
We are fortunate enough at the Center to implement to
evidence based maternal infant home visiting programs. When I say
evidence based, that means they've gone through search and families
who have participated or women who have participated in the
(04:07):
home visiting models have actually been followed so they can
actually see what outcomes we're benefited through participating. And one
of those is called one of the models that we
implement is called Healthy Families America. It is typically implemented
by social workers persons who are professionals in early childhood
(04:29):
education or what they call life science, and they implement
Healthy Families of America in the home. They we are
hoping to enroll pregnant women or first time moms up
through six months of the baby's age. They go out
to the home. They do education, and that education is
(04:52):
more parenting skills. They teach developmental milestones to parents. They
make sure that the parents or help the parents to
understand that at each stage of a baby's life that
there's different things to look for. And then they take
out different types of toys and give them ideas of
(05:16):
things that they have in the home that they can
play with, what type of books to use for the
children at different ages, so when their kids are growing,
they know how to interact with them and how to
attach to them in a way.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
That helps and supports their development.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
How is the home visitation linked to child abuse prevention
home visitation?
Speaker 4 (05:37):
That's a great question.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Home visitation is linked to child abuse because both models.
When you are involved in home visitation, you have someone
coming to you teaching you again parenting skills. How do
I respond when I have not had any sleep and
my baby is two weeks old and I feed it,
(06:01):
I put her down, or I put him down, he's crying,
or she's crying, pick him up, I feed him, they're
crying again. I'm exhausted. How can I respond to that?
Why is that baby crying? Because often child abuse happens
or children are harmed because that adult responsible for them
(06:21):
doesn't always understand what their behaviors mean. So out of frustration,
out of not knowing what else to do, I've tried
everything and nothing else to get frustrated sometimes, so having
someone come out or home visitation prevents child abuse because
we're giving parents parenting skills that can be mom that
(06:42):
can be mom, and dad that can be mom, and
whomever she identifies as her partner, the person that's helping
her care for that baby. They are given they are
taught how to respond best with the child based on
their developmental age.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, that's what I was just going to ask you.
Just the benefits that you provide, especially to those first
time mom first time parents.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yeah, with Nurse Family Partnership, it's implemented by the name
by nurses and for that program, we try to well,
we do enroll moms who are pregnant. We try to
enroll them as early in their pregnancy as possible. And
the first interactions the nurses going out, she's doing an assessment.
(07:30):
She's talking to mom about her pregnancy. They're identifying anything
that might be going on in that mom's life that
could interfere or be a barrier to her being able
to carry that baby full term. They work with mom
to see if they're in what goals mom has for
herself that could help her and her partner to be
(07:53):
the best parent, help put her be the best mom
and help them to be the best parents possible. Sometimes
it's helping them develop goals on how if it's a
tea mom. Her goal might be I want to when
I babies, when I have the baby, I want to
go back to school.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
So then the nurse is talking.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
To her about what might keep you from going back
to school once the baby is here? Is it because
you won't have anybody to watch the baby. Then they
start talking about resources that she can start reaching out to,
or we can refer her to for child care so
she can't go back to school.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
This, Marie, this is such public health in action. I
think about how not everyone was raised like you were
raised and I was raised. I think about what's going
on in the world right now. Jeanie. This is so
important because what we know and we didn't know everything,
and we became moms either early, but we may have
(08:53):
had a leg up compared to so many people. Why
is this so crucial in our community and why should
it matter to people who are in our shoes. I
think that's a good conversation to have with this audience.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I think it's crucial for our community, and it's important
and impactful for all of us because when you're a
parent and you understand how you understand the cues that
the cues that your baby gives you. It helps you
to respond to them in a positive way. And when
(09:26):
you respond to children positively, then their brains develop like
they're supposed to. They feel safe, so when they leave home,
they feel safe at home. So when they go to school,
whether it's preschool or kindergarten, they feel comfortable. They feel
(09:47):
confident because home is a safe space for me. So
because I'm coming from a place where I'm supported, i
can go to school and feel as if I have
what I need to be in kindergarten or be in
preschool versus not having security at home and going to
(10:08):
school and being expected to be able to learn how
to write your name, when I haven't had anybody teach me,
for an example, how to blow my nose. Yeah, Okay,
it sounds like, how does that interfere with learning?
Speaker 4 (10:23):
But it does. It does.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
If I am a five year old going to kindergarten
and I'm coming to school and every day because I
have allergies, my nose is running all the time, and
no one has taught me how to blow my nose,
because no one said to the adult responsible to me
that these are some tools that you should teach your
child before they go to kindergarten because they're not going
(10:47):
to teach them that in school, that I might sit
in school all day with the running nose, and then
because I have a running nose, I'm distracted and I'm
not learning how to write my name or how to read.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
So how can someone enroll in the program or who
can actually enroll? I mean, you know, could a grandmother
enroll their daughter.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Or Yes, we take referrals from physicians. We take them
from doctors, we take them from midwives, we take them
from any provider that's taking care of a mom or
a family, and they think, based on what mom may
be sharing with them, what they may see when mom
comes into the visit, that they might benefit from home visiting,
(11:27):
we take referrals from them. We take self referrals a mom.
If someone is listening to this call and they're like, oh,
you know, I'm pregnant.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
I'm by myself.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I could use some help, they can refer themselves. Yes,
a grandmother can refer her daughter or her next door
neighbor or whatever to our program. They can go to
the website of the Center for Family Safety and Healing.
They go to that website and our Maternal Infant home
Visitation program is listed, and both programs that I models
(12:01):
that I mentioned, Healthy Families America and Nurse Family.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Partnership are listed.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
You click on either one of them, it gives you
all the information about what what you will receive when
you enroll in the program and a phone number that
you can call.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
So important. The work is just absolutely incredibly important to
our community, Marianne, and you and I have seen that
in action, and I want to give that website out specifically.
Is it the Center for Families Safety and Healing dot org?
Speaker 4 (12:37):
If that's what's in there.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
For the Family Safety and Healing dot org, Family Safety
and Healing dot org. Genie, such an important conversation. Thank
you so much.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah, so needed, so needed.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, this is what matters. This is what matters on
six' TEN wtv.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
And what that was BOS a way too funny one
hundred years that was called us my good, ay get
it fixed too. Much that's a fust, use Said Boyer's
QUICE t Dogs. Manu whether you're looking for, me call
Or Super Senior car or teams you're denop experience what
(13:20):
you eat ste
Top of the five o'clock hour here on What Matters.
So glad you're with us. Mindy is out, Maria Durant
is in and hello, Hello, Hello, hello again. So glad
to have you. You know, and you and I have
had to talk about, you know, issues like this throughout
our careers as journalists. It is National Child Abuse Awareness Month,
(00:20):
and you and I have covered too many stories.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Many of these stories, and there's some of the most
heartbreaking stories that you cover as a journalist, especially as
a mom. You know, I would do interviews and you
can't help think, you know, about your own child or
anybody else's child, and you're doing these interviews, and I
always teared up.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
It was yeah, and then I think about the stories
we didn't tell because we didn't know about them, right right.
You know, we're really fortunate to have Jeanie Wickliffe with us,
who's the director of Maternal Infant Home Visitation for the
Center for Health and Sorry, the Center for Family Safety
and Healing at Nationwide Children's Hospital. And Genie, the work
(01:04):
you do so important. We were getting to know you
a little bit before you came on the air. Thanks
for being with us today.
Speaker 3 (01:10):
We absolutely thank you for giving me this opportunity to
brag a little bit and share some things about what
we do at the center.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
You're making a real impact in the community. Tell people
what your program specifically does.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
Specifically, maternal infant home visiting reaches out to. Our target
is first time moms, and we do home visitation. So
we have nurses and social workers that go out into
the home and they do parental.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
Skills. They you know, parenting skills.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
They talk to the pregnant moms about what to expect
throughout their pregnancy, giving them a good realization or a
good picture of what's normal doing pregnancy and what's not normal.
So when they are talking with they're going to their
appointments with their provider, with their physician or their nurse
practitioner or their midwife, they have more information and feel
(02:10):
better about asking questions and sharing their concerns. Often when
women are pregnant, we take things for granted. You know,
it's the first time, and even if it's your second
or third time, each pregnancy is different.
Speaker 4 (02:26):
So the nurse and the social worker.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Do a great job with teaching moms how to advocate
for themselves, how to say to your provider. You know,
I don't understand that I came in and told you
that I was having headaches, but we haven't addressed the headaches.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Can we talk about the headaches?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Because that happens, and I don't it happens, but we
don't think that it's happening because anyone's necessarily being neglectful
or it's intentional. It's just that things A and a
provider's all. The sort of doctor's office is so busy
that sometimes when they see a patient that's pregnant and
(03:05):
they're six months pregnant, there's things that they have on
a check off list, and I need to check those
things off. But once that check off list is checked off,
often that provider is off to the next client or
next patient. So the social workers and the nurses when
they go out into the homes really help moms to
give them the right words scripting, you know, how do
(03:26):
you advocate for yourself? How do you help the provider
understand when I say that I'm having.
Speaker 4 (03:31):
A headache, what does that mean?
Speaker 3 (03:33):
Because headaches can lead to other things, can mean other
things that can be serious and impactful for mom and
for the baby.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
And that was just an example.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
So now is it a one time visit or how
how long are you with?
Speaker 4 (03:46):
You know that mom.
Speaker 3 (03:47):
We are fortunate enough at the Center to implement to
evidence based maternal infant home visiting programs. When I say
evidence based, that means they've gone through search and families
who have participated or women who have participated in the
(04:07):
home visiting models have actually been followed so they can
actually see what outcomes we're benefited through participating. And one
of those is called one of the models that we
implement is called Healthy Families America. It is typically implemented
by social workers persons who are professionals in early childhood
(04:29):
education or what they call life science, and they implement
Healthy Families of America in the home. They we are
hoping to enroll pregnant women or first time moms up
through six months of the baby's age. They go out
to the home. They do education, and that education is
(04:52):
more parenting skills. They teach developmental milestones to parents. They
make sure that the parents or help the parents to
understand that at each stage of a baby's life that
there's different things to look for. And then they take
out different types of toys and give them ideas of
(05:16):
things that they have in the home that they can
play with, what type of books to use for the
children at different ages, so when their kids are growing,
they know how to interact with them and how to
attach to them in a way.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
That helps and supports their development.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
How is the home visitation linked to child abuse prevention
home visitation?
Speaker 4 (05:37):
That's a great question.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Home visitation is linked to child abuse because both models.
When you are involved in home visitation, you have someone
coming to you teaching you again parenting skills. How do
I respond when I have not had any sleep and
my baby is two weeks old and I feed it,
(06:01):
I put her down, or I put him down, he's crying,
or she's crying, pick him up, I feed him, they're
crying again. I'm exhausted. How can I respond to that?
Why is that baby crying? Because often child abuse happens
or children are harmed because that adult responsible for them
(06:21):
doesn't always understand what their behaviors mean. So out of frustration,
out of not knowing what else to do, I've tried
everything and nothing else to get frustrated sometimes, so having
someone come out or home visitation prevents child abuse because
we're giving parents parenting skills that can be mom that
(06:42):
can be mom, and dad that can be mom, and
whomever she identifies as her partner, the person that's helping
her care for that baby. They are given they are
taught how to respond best with the child based on
their developmental age.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah, that's what I was just going to ask you.
Just the benefits that you provide, especially to those first
time mom first time parents.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yeah, with Nurse Family Partnership, it's implemented by the name
by nurses and for that program, we try to well,
we do enroll moms who are pregnant. We try to
enroll them as early in their pregnancy as possible. And
the first interactions the nurses going out, she's doing an assessment.
(07:30):
She's talking to mom about her pregnancy. They're identifying anything
that might be going on in that mom's life that
could interfere or be a barrier to her being able
to carry that baby full term. They work with mom
to see if they're in what goals mom has for
herself that could help her and her partner to be
(07:53):
the best parent, help put her be the best mom
and help them to be the best parents possible. Sometimes
it's helping them develop goals on how if it's a
tea mom. Her goal might be I want to when
I babies, when I have the baby, I want to
go back to school.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
So then the nurse is talking.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
To her about what might keep you from going back
to school once the baby is here? Is it because
you won't have anybody to watch the baby. Then they
start talking about resources that she can start reaching out to,
or we can refer her to for child care so
she can't go back to school.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
This, Marie, this is such public health in action. I
think about how not everyone was raised like you were
raised and I was raised. I think about what's going
on in the world right now. Jeanie. This is so
important because what we know and we didn't know everything,
and we became moms either early, but we may have
(08:53):
had a leg up compared to so many people. Why
is this so crucial in our community and why should
it matter to people who are in our shoes. I
think that's a good conversation to have with this audience.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I think it's crucial for our community, and it's important
and impactful for all of us because when you're a
parent and you understand how you understand the cues that
the cues that your baby gives you. It helps you
to respond to them in a positive way. And when
(09:26):
you respond to children positively, then their brains develop like
they're supposed to. They feel safe, so when they leave home,
they feel safe at home. So when they go to school,
whether it's preschool or kindergarten, they feel comfortable. They feel
(09:47):
confident because home is a safe space for me. So
because I'm coming from a place where I'm supported, i
can go to school and feel as if I have
what I need to be in kindergarten or be in
preschool versus not having security at home and going to
(10:08):
school and being expected to be able to learn how
to write your name, when I haven't had anybody teach me,
for an example, how to blow my nose. Yeah, Okay,
it sounds like, how does that interfere with learning?
Speaker 4 (10:23):
But it does. It does.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
If I am a five year old going to kindergarten
and I'm coming to school and every day because I
have allergies, my nose is running all the time, and
no one has taught me how to blow my nose,
because no one said to the adult responsible to me
that these are some tools that you should teach your
child before they go to kindergarten because they're not going
(10:47):
to teach them that in school, that I might sit
in school all day with the running nose, and then
because I have a running nose, I'm distracted and I'm
not learning how to write my name or how to read.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
So how can someone enroll in the program or who
can actually enroll? I mean, you know, could a grandmother
enroll their daughter.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
Or Yes, we take referrals from physicians. We take them
from doctors, we take them from midwives, we take them
from any provider that's taking care of a mom or
a family, and they think, based on what mom may
be sharing with them, what they may see when mom
comes into the visit, that they might benefit from home visiting,
(11:27):
we take referrals from them. We take self referrals a mom.
If someone is listening to this call and they're like, oh,
you know, I'm pregnant.
Speaker 4 (11:36):
I'm by myself.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
I could use some help, they can refer themselves. Yes,
a grandmother can refer her daughter or her next door
neighbor or whatever to our program. They can go to
the website of the Center for Family Safety and Healing.
They go to that website and our Maternal Infant home
Visitation program is listed, and both programs that I models
(12:01):
that I mentioned, Healthy Families America and Nurse Family.
Speaker 4 (12:04):
Partnership are listed.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
You click on either one of them, it gives you
all the information about what what you will receive when
you enroll in the program and a phone number that
you can call.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
So important. The work is just absolutely incredibly important to
our community, Marianne, and you and I have seen that
in action, and I want to give that website out specifically.
Is it the Center for Families Safety and Healing dot org?
Speaker 4 (12:37):
If that's what's in there.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
For the Family Safety and Healing dot org, Family Safety
and Healing dot org. Genie, such an important conversation. Thank
you so much.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah, so needed, so needed.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
Yeah, this is what matters. This is what matters on
six' TEN wtv.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
And what that was BOS a way too funny one
hundred years that was called us my good, ay get
it fixed too. Much that's a fust, use Said Boyer's
QUICE t Dogs. Manu whether you're looking for, me call
Or Super Senior car or teams you're denop experience what
(13:20):
you eat ste
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