Pregnant women and families with young children often find it difficult to locate support that meets their needs! Capital Area Healthy Start (CAHSC) is dedicated to improving the health of infants and their families by connecting new or expecting moms and families with young children to community programs that help with pregnancy and parenting. We do this through our programs, Connect, Healthy Start, Sister Friends Tallahassee, and FIMR.
Connect provides a one-stop entry point for services such as education and support for childbirth, newborn care, parenting skills, child development, food and nutrition, mental health, and financial self-sufficiency. While Healthy Start is an ongoing program that provides education, support, and proven interventions to expecting and new families with babies up until the age of 3. In addition to these programs, Sister Friends Tallahassee utilizes an evidence-based mentoring model to specifically address the needs of Black mothers in our local community due to the inequalities in mortality among Black and White moms and babies. Consequently, this program allows women who understand their community resources to be a link between these resources and women who need those resources. We also participate in the National Fetal and Infant Mortality Review (FIMR), which consists of countywide efforts to better understand the issues associated with fetal and infant mortality and morbidity and to develop strategies that improve perinatal systems of care locally.