Wellbeing (e.g. Youth, Community, Mental)
Sharing Session - 30 Minutes
Rebecca Smith, MPH, BSN, RN
Nurse Administrator
Montgomery County DHHS
The structure of Montgomery County's Department of Health and Human Services allows easy collaboration between School Health Nurses and Community Health Nurses to provide coordinated home-based and school-based case management services to all pregnant teens identified in the schools. When school personnel learn that a teen is pregnant, the teen is assigned to the School Health Nurse for school-based case management. The School Health Nurse then makes an immediate referral to a Public Health Nurse from Community Health Services. The Public Health Nurse provides home-based case management. In tandem, the two nurses work to ensure that the teen has health insurance, is receiving prenatal care, is in a safe home, has the necessary resources for the baby, and is prepared for the baby's arrival and the subsequent return to school. With the nurses' assessments and eyes in both the home and the school, the duo can learn a great deal about the teen, her health, and her social situation. Also essential in the program's structure is the Integrated Services provided to each teen during Intensive Team Meetings, allowing an interdisciplinary group to provide support and guidance to the teen and her family. This three-pronged approach to managing pregnant teens has show promise in Montgomery County. Teens in the program have had better than expected birth outcomes as compared with teens throughout the state of Maryland.