A total of 87 pregnant women and mothers of children up to 2 years of age in Plovdiv have been included in the home visiting care of the NFP Program since 2019. 58 of them are active users of the service at the moment. Specially trained midwives and nurses visited the homes of young women more than 1,500 times, and during the pandemic the meetings were conducted through the method of telehealth. These results were reported by the team of the NFP program at the meeting of the Fifth Local Advisory Council, which was held in Plovdiv in the end of May. The NFP Program is being implemented by the Trust for Social Achievement (TSA) in Sofia and Plovdiv, in partnership with "Sheynovo" Hospital and "St. George" Hospital.
The meeting was attended by representatives of the local administration and by the team of nurses, midwives and mediators in Plovdiv. According to Ivanka Puleva, the TSA”s project manager, "these meetings are important in the context of implementing our common mission - to spread one of the world's most successful models for improving maternal and child health, with our ultimate goal being turning it into a public policy and making it available to everyone." Iskra Stoykova, director of TSA’s Program “First Foundations” presented data on the access to free medicines and the drug policy with respect to young children in Bulgaria. Bulgaria is the first country in Eastern Europe licensed to test the model of the Nurse Family Partnership Program which provides specialized care for pregnant women and mothers of children up to 2 years. According to this model, specially trained teams of nurses and midwives pay home visits to families, providing moral and physical support to women and children at this early stage of their development, taking into account the importance of prenatal development. The program involves economically disadvantaged families and families of Roma origin. The NFP Program has been operating in Sofia since 2016, and was introduced in Plovdiv in 2019. The users of the service in Plovdiv are residents of Stolipinovo and Sheker neighborhoods.
The main goals of home visiting care have to do with ensuring a successful outcome of women's pregnancy, improving child health and development, and helping parents achieve economic independence.