Star Babies: Evaluation of a health visiting initiative for first-time parents in Northern Ireland

Abstract

Star Babies is an enhancement of the universal Child Health Promotion Programme in Northern Ireland, where first-time parents are offered additional regular health visiting support from the antenatal period until the baby is 12 months of age. This study was carried out to evaluate outcomes of first-time parents who received the core Child Health Programme or the enhanced Star Babies programme to identify the areas where the programmes are successful and to quantitatively assess the magnitude of their impact. First-time parents were invited to participate in the study and were divided into two groups: those in the Star Babies programme (n=189) and those in the core Child Health Promotion Programme (n=125). The study found differences between the two groupings of first-time parents and the evaluation of the health visiting services received in terms of infant feeding, knowledge of preventing home accidents and overall satisfaction varied across the two groups. The findings highlight the positive outcomes from an enhanced health visitor-led programme such as Star Babies, with implications for policy, practice and service development.