In 1979, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) supported a demonstration project in Elmira, N.Y., that used registered nurses to take preventive health services into the homes of young, low-income pregnant women and first-time mothers.

Randomized controlled trials conducted in Elmira and subsequently Memphis, Tenn., and Denver showed the home visits yielded positive health and developmental outcomes for children and mothers. After two decades of research, David L. Olds, Ph.D., architect of the intervention, initiated a national program to replicate the model across the country. For more on Olds and his model see The Story of David Olds and the Nurse Home Visiting Program.

In 2007, the Denver-based program — named the Nurse-Family Partnership® — embarked on a $50-million expansion plan aimed at fielding 6,000 nurse visitors and serving approximately 99,000 families by the year 2017.

Key Results as of December 2007

• A total of 113 state, county and city agencies and private organizations provided Nurse-Family Partnership services in 290 counties in 23 states.
• An estimated 860 registered nurses were active as home visitors.
• Enrollment in the program averaged 13,272 families at any one time during the year.
• The cumulative number of families served by the program since the first dissemination effort in 1996 totaled an estimated 80,423.

Program Management
Initially the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center in Denver operated the national replication program under Olds' supervision. In 2003, Nurse-Family Partnership became a separate nonprofit organization with its own board of directors.

Olds—a professor in the university's department of pediatrics—did not take a position in the replication organization but continued to conduct program-related research and provide consultative support.

Funding
Since 1979, RWJF has provided 12 grants totaling $26.8 million to support development of Olds' home-visiting model and its national replication as the Nurse-Family Partnership program. That includes $10 million authorized by the Board of Trustees in October 2007 to support the replication effort for three additional years starting in January 2008.

Over the years, numerous other philanthropies and government agencies also provided funding. Most prominently, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation has given $20.3 million and played a lead role in the expansion effort.