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Aligning with smart start's 0-5 services/focus, Coastal Horizons offers the Child First program. Child First is an evidenced-based, voluntary in-home service for families with children under six years old who live in Brunswick, New Hanover, Columbus, and Pender counties. Focus is placed on the child’s health and development, their important relationships, and the challenges experienced by their parents/caregivers.
Child First teams consist of:
• A Clinician who uses Child-Parent Psychotherapy in order to strengthen
the parent-child relationship and address childhood trauma.
• A Family Resource Partner who works to provide care coordination
services in order to reduce toxic stress in the environment, focus on a
return to healthy development and improvement in executive functioning
for the child and caregiver.
Appropriate referrals would be any child 0-5 ½ years old with Medicaid who may have challenges related to their development (emotional, social, or physical), a child who may have been exposed to a trauma, parents with mental health, substance use, domestic violence, chronic poverty or other risk factors that would create chronic stress for the family.
Families that participate in Child First services typically stay engaged in treatment from 6months to 1 year depending on treatment needs.
Outcomes have shown:
• Children who participated in Child First services had decreased language
problems, less defiant and aggressive behavior.
• Parents who participated in Child First services had decreased levels of
depression and other mental health issues.
• Families who participated in Child First were less likely to be involved
with the Department of Social Services and had increased access to
community supports.
In addition to the Child First program, Coastal Horizons has a Prevention department which provides families with a wide variety of free resources and information. Accidental poisoning prevention and medication safety are two very big focuses of the prevention department at Coastal Horizons, and we are excited to offer the following FREE medication safety and FREE accidental poisoning resources; free medication lockboxes to lock up/secure prescription medications, free medication disposal kits to dispose of any expired or unused prescription medications, and free printed medication safety information offered in both English and Spanish.
Please feel free to reach out to Teresa Mobley at tmobley@coastalhorizons.org for any requests for free resources or more information.
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