The Fidelis Care Blog

MOMMAS House, a residential program for young homeless pregnant or parenting women ages 18 to 24 and their babies, recently celebrated the completion of its first Nurturing Parenting Program class. MOMMAS House developed the Nurturing Parenting Program with funding provided by Fidelis Care. 

Taking place over nine weekly sessions, the Nurturing Parenting Program for the young mothers at MOMMAS House aims to foster healthy family dynamics through empathy, family bonding, and positive discipline strategies. These family-centered, trauma-informed programs are designed to develop nurturing parenting skills as a constructive alternative to abusive and neglectful parenting practices.  

The Nurturing Parenting Program is based on the following constructs: 

1. Appropriate parental expectations. 
2. Empathic awareness of the needs of children. 
3. Understanding and valuing empathic, effective discipline strategies, and behavior encouragement techniques. 
4. Understanding appropriate parent/child roles and responsibilities. 
5. Development of power and independence in children. 

The program focuses on the needs of the mother and works to understand mothers’ personal history and experiences to better formulate parenting style. The course uses the Adult Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI) for pre- and post- testing. The assessments provide valuable insights into mothers’ parenting attitudes before and after the course. Assessment results will be used to gauge where additional support is needed in future efforts.  

Learn more about MOMMAS House here. To learn more about Fidelis Care's maternal health grants and recipient organizations, please click here.