Diabetes Program

Counselors at Fair Haven promote self-management by helping patients with diabetes control their condition.  Our staff teach patients about their medications and how to take them.  Also, the counselors provide one-on-one nutrition and exercise counseling to promote a healthy lifestyle.  We also incorporate yoga and meditation to help patients manage stress levels. 

Top of Page

Diabetes Prevention Program

The families of Fair Haven patients who have metabolic abnormalities are invited to participate in the Diabetes Prevention Program.  DPP is a 12-week intensive lifestyle program that focuses eating right and exercising.  Following 45 minutes of education, the families have individual meetings with a medical provider.  The group then participates in an hour of supervised physical education.  Transportation, childcare, and meals are provided for patients at Fair Haven free of charge.

Top of Page

Smoking Cessation

At Fair Haven, the Smoking Cessation program helps women of childbearing age to stop smoking.  Our counselors help patients identify the relationship between stress levels and their desire to smoke by encouraging patients to monitor how they feel when they smoke.  Counselors see patients following their appointments with clinicians, and they use a variety of methods, including patches and Chantix, to help patients quit smoking.

Top of Page

Nurturing Families

Becoming a parent for the first time is exciting, but can also be stressful.  New families have lots of questions about their baby, and they can use lots of help and support.  Nurturing Families is a program at the Fair Haven Community Health Center for all first time parents and parents who are pregnant with their first baby.  Our mission is to ensure that all first time parents, especially those facing the greatest challenges, receive the support and education they need and want through our Home Visiting Program and Parent Groups.

Nurturing Families staff spend time with pregnant women or new parents and talk about their hopes and concerns about parenting.  The focus of home visiting is on child development, improving health, teaching parenting skills, and strengthening the family. 
Pregnant women and their partners and first time parents who have a baby three months or younger are eligible for the Home Visiting program.  All services are offered on a voluntary basis and are free.  All home visitors are bilingual and sensitive to the cultural values of families in the New Haven community.

Parenting groups focus on improving parenting skills, learning child development, and teaching activities to help children grow.  Children’s groups providing educational activities are offered at the same time so parents do not need to arrange childcare.  Free meals are provided at every group.  All parents of children from birth to age five in the Fair Haven Community are welcome to participate. 

Top of Page

Women, Infants, Children (WIC)

Fair Haven offers the state and federally subsidized Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) supplemental food program.  WIC provides nutrition counseling and helps low-income mothers and their children buy nutritious foods.  WIC helps low-income pregnant and postpartum women, and children up to age five, to buy the extra foods they need during pregnancy, infancy, and young childhood.  Women and children must be low income and have a nutritional risk such as poor diet, low weight gain, or anemia in order to be eligible. 

Top of Page

Minding the Baby

Fair Haven coordinates an innovative home visit program, Minding the Baby, for first time parents in collaboration with the Yale Child Study Center.  A pediatric nurse practitioner and a social worker visit expectant families from the second trimester of pregnancy through the baby’s second year of life.

Top of Page

PediBRIDGE

PediBRIDGE stands for Pediatric BMI Recognition and Intervention During General Encounters.  This program has helped our pediatric staff to screen all children for overweight and to track those who are overweight.  The project has helped us to implement new strategies that capitalize on the routine clinic visit as the ideal opportunity to improve health for overweight children.  The project has also worked to encourage exercise and improved nutrition.

Top of Page

Well Baby Groups

During Well Baby Groups, Fair Haven provides well-child care, including physical exams, vaccinations, developmental assessment, and social support in a group setting for new families with babies in the first year of life.  We build community by bringing people together; reducing isolation, providing social support, and increasing parents’ capacity to learn child development and care of minor illness and injury prevention. 

Top of Page

Reach Out and Read

Fair Haven’s innovative early literacy program, Reach Out and Reach (ROR) encourages healthy child development and an early love of reading.  Children receive a new, age and language appropriate book at each well child visit from 6 months to five years of age.  Books include favorites such as Goodnight Moon in English and Spanish.  Parents are encouraged to share these books with their children in any capacity they are capable.  With additional contributions of new and gently used books from friends, volunteers, the Connecticut ROR Coalition, and New Haven Reads, we are able to offer a book to every child to comes to the center.  

Top of Page

Student Groups

We also have a variety of programs involving teens in the Fair Haven Community to promote healthy lifestyles.  The School Based Health Centers offer nutrition and exercise education as well as programs for stress reduction that teach meditation and yoga.  Our staff involve librarians and teachers to promote early literacy among all of our students. We also have formed a variety of student groups that provide safe and comfortable environments for students to learn and ask questions  about their health.  High school girls interested in getting fit and improving their eating habits have formed a Walk and Talk group.  The group provides an opportunity for girls to discuss health and emotional issues they face, as well as provide support for their peers.  Peer mentoring encourages younger students to ask older students about all aspects of health care ranging from emotional stress to decision making and problem solving.

Top of Page

I Promise Campaign

Fair Haven also supports an I Promise campaign in the Fair Haven Community.  Students sign a pledge to make safe choices for prom.  The program encourages students to avoid drinking and driving, and it also promotes safe sex practices.  Students pledge to take care of themselves and their friends. 

Top of Page

Organic Garden

Our middle school students have been collaborating with the Fair Haven Public Library to establish and maintain an organic garden.  This hands-on project provides a multi-faceted educational program that allows students to learn about nutrition and their bodies. 

Top of Page

HIV and AIDS

Fair Haven also has innovative programming for adolescents who are HIV positive or HIV affected.  Support groups provide psychoeducational programs for students who have a parent or loved one who are HIV positive.  The groups provide students with a safe environment to discuss their experiences with HIV and AIDS openly.  They also work to break down the social stigma surrounding the disease.  Youth Lead programs promote the idea of teens teaching teens about the prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted disease.  Additionally, the program teaches students how to support their friends who are affected by HIV and AIDS.

Top of Page

Teen Parents

Fair Haven provides a variety of programs to support teen mothers.  Once a week, our staff offers a parenting class to teach young parents about the responsibilities of caring for their children.  We also provide medical consultation for the childcare facilities at the schools.  Fair Haven also advocates at the city level for pregnant and parenting teens.  We work with a coalition of other interested groups and individuals to breakdown barriers that prevent teens from accessing reproductive healthcare. 

Top of Page