Guidance

Family Nurse Partnership programme

How the Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) supports first-time young parents, evidence for the programme, and where it is provided in England.

From:
Office for Health Improvement and Disparities
Published
18 July 2024
Last updated
25 February 2026 — See all updates

Applies to England

About the Family Nurse Partnership programme

The Family Nurse Partnership (FNP) is an intensive, targeted, home-visiting programme for first-time young parents. It aims to improve children’s life chances by supporting families during pregnancy and early childhood.

The FNP programme is provided locally by FNP teams across England. Each local team is made up of FNP supervisors, family nurses and quality support officers.

FNP benefits both parents and children, working primarily through the mother. Family nurses also engage with partners, regardless of biological relation, to strengthen outcomes for the child. This approach is supported by findings such as those in the Fatherhood Institute’s 2022 report Bringing Baby Home: UK fathers in the first year after birth.

By building a consistent, trusting relationship between the family nurse and parent, FNP enables parents to provide sensitive and responsive care for their children. In doing so, FNP plays a vital role in reducing health disparities and improving life chances.

FNP recognises the impact of wider determinants of health - such as housing, education and income - on long-term outcomes. The programme has been shown to improve child development, school readiness and early educational attainment, which in turn support better health, wellbeing and economic prospects.

FNP contributes to the government’s ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children by supporting the 3 strategic shifts outlined in the 10 Year Health Plan.

FNP’s alignment with initiatives such as Best Start for Life Family Hubs and the development of neighbourhood health teams reinforces its role in integrated, future-facing models of care through regular home visits.

How the programme works

FNP teams recruit first-time mothers aged up to 24 based on local eligibility criteria. The programme is tailored to each parent’s needs and circumstances building on what they are already doing well.

By focusing on what the parent can do well, FNP enables young parents to:

  • build strong, responsive relationships with their child
  • make informed choices to support their child’s development and that will give their child the best possible start in life
  • develop self-confidence and a belief in their own ability to succeed
  • apply the positive relationship they have with their family nurse to other areas of life

Each family is supported by a dedicated family nurse who provides regular home visits from early pregnancy until the child is aged between 1 and 2. These visits create a supportive space to focus on pregnancy, parenting and wider personal development.

How family nurses work

Family nurses build trusted relationships with young parents, supporting them to make and sustain positive changes for themselves and their baby.

Family nurses support young mothers to:

  • have a healthy pregnancy
  • improve their child’s health, development and school readiness
  • reach their own goals and aspirations

In their work with young parents, family nurses:

  • help identify emerging needs, promote healthy behaviours and strengthen family resilience
  • provide care in homes and communities, helping reduce reliance on acute services and putting in place preventative support close to where families live
  • support families to access trusted digital resources, enhancing engagement and empowering parents to make informed decisions

Family nurses work at local level alongside multi-agency professionals - including midwives, health visitors, social workers and early years practitioners - to ensure seamless, co-ordinated support for young families.

This collaborative approach strengthens continuity of care between services and helps families navigate between different sources of support more easily.

Family nurses are well placed to recognise when additional support is required and work closely with children’s social care to ensure children are kept safe, while continuing to provide the programme through home visits.

How the programme is provided

FNP is provided under licence from the University of Colorado Denver, USA. The programme has been established in 8 countries.

FNP has been provided in England since 2007. The licence is held by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.

FNP licence requirements, including family nurse training, quality assurance and programme data collection, is overseen by the 0 to 19 Clinical Programmes Unit within the Department of Health of Social Care (DHSC). This means the programme is provided consistently, with local areas able to make changes to suit the needs of families in their area.

Evidence of how FNP benefits parents and children

The FNP is backed by over 40 years of international research and is recognised by the Early Intervention Foundation Guidebook for its strong evidence base.

The FNP programme can contribute to improving children’s development and school readiness. Research has shown that the programme can have a positive impact on the development of some children’s cognitive skills (Kitman and others, 2019). This, in turn, can have a positive, life-long impact on health, wellbeing and economic stability - an important factor in tackling health disparities and improving life chances.

What FNP graduates and their family nurses think of the FNP programme

FNP graduates in Plymouth and their family nurses describe the benefits of the programme in this video:

Video: inspiring stories from teenage mums helped by the FNP programme

Vicki, a graduate from Plymouth FNP, said:

I just don’t think I’d be here now if it wasn’t for the service. I come from quite a hard background - one of poverty. My family nurse got me out of being homeless and into a flat. She encouraged me to go back to college. Now I have a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in literature and I’m currently doing a PhD.

Young parents and family nurses from Tameside also reflect on the FNP programme in this video:

Video: young parents and family nurses from Tameside reflect on the FNP programme

Find a local FNP service

The FNP programme is delivered across England at the following locations:

Benefits to local areas of commissioning FNP

To commission the FNP service or for information about building workforce capacity in your area, email: 0-19clinicalprogrammesunit@dhsc.gov.uk.

There is also Guidance to support commissioning the FNP programme, which includes the model specification.

Commissioning the FNP programme enables local systems to provide targeted, evidence-based support to young families facing the highest levels of vulnerability.

Young parents - particularly those under 25 - remain one of the most disadvantaged groups in England, with poorer outcomes across health, education and economic stability.

The Centre for Young Lives 2025 report (State of the nation: identifying vulnerable children and young people and supporting them to thrive) shows that over 920,000 young people aged 16 to 24 are not in education, employment or training (NEET), a group in which young parents are significantly overrepresented.

These overlapping vulnerabilities place young parents and their children at heightened risk of poor outcomes. FNP offers a structured, relational intervention that builds trust, strengthens parents’ confidence in their own abilities and improves early childhood development - helping to reduce inequalities and support long-term resilience.

Commissioning FNP also supports delivery of the 0 to 19 public health specialist offer as part of the healthy child programme. FNP teams work collaboratively with health and care colleagues to improve outcomes and reduce disparities, contributing to integrated care, safeguarding and the ambition to raise the healthiest generation of children.

Statement from Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council:

One of the greatest pleasures of commissioning the Family Nurse Partnership programme is seeing young parents graduate with confidence and independence. The learning from the programme has helped us strengthen universal services and better support young families beyond graduation.

For more information, read the guidance to support commissioning of the FNP programme (linked above), including the model specification.

Monitoring and reporting

The FNP information system captures real-time data on programme provision, client characteristics and outcomes. This supports strategic decision-making about service-planning, commissioning and continuous improvement.

Building workforce capacity

FNP teams contribute to the wider maternity and early years workforce by sharing expertise, enhancing existing pathways and co-developing new approaches for supporting vulnerable families. Their relationship-based approach and specialist training strengthen local service integration and quality.

National support and training

FNP in England is nationally supported by the 0 to 19 Clinical Programmes Unit within DHSC. This central support is provided at no cost to local authorities.

The unit ensures consistent, high-quality provision of the programme by offering:

  • comprehensive training for family nurses and supervisors - this is consistently rated as transformative by practitioners and is recognised for improving clinical confidence, relationship-based practice and outcomes for young parents
  • programme materials and ongoing clinical support, including access to national guidance documents and a dedicated learning platform to consolidate mandatory training and support continuous professional development
  • a national clinical data and reporting system, enabling robust monitoring, evaluation and strategic planning
  • quality assurance and improvement frameworks, supporting consistent provision of the programme model and enhancing local governance
  • expert advice, implementation support and national leadership, ensuring FNP teams are equipped to provide the programme effectively and adaptively within local systems

Funding

FNP is provided through a co-funded model that supports both local flexibility and national consistency.

Local authorities fund the operational costs of FNP teams through the public health grant. This includes staffing, supervision and local delivery infrastructure.

DHSC centrally funds the programme licence and the 0 to 19 Clinical Programmes Unit, which provides national training, guidance, quality assurance and data infrastructure at no cost to local areas.

This funding model ensures that local systems can access a high-quality, evidence-based programme without bearing the cost of national infrastructure.

It also enables consistent provision across England while allowing for local adaptation and innovation.

Innovation and development of the programme

FNP in England continues to evolve through innovation and service improvement. The Accelerated Design and Programme Testing (ADAPT) project used rapid testing cycles to refine and strengthen programme provision.

Some FNP teams have developed enhanced pathways for vulnerable parents not eligible for FNP, ensuring more families receive targeted support. Others have created father-specific services. These developments reflect FNP’s commitment to inclusive practice, clinical quality and responsive service design.

References

Kitman and others, Prenatal and Infancy Nurse Home Visiting and 18-Year Outcomes of a Randomized Trial , Pediatrics December 2019, Volume 4, Issue 6: e20183876

Updates to this page

Published 18 July 2024
Last updated 25 February 2026 show all updates

  1. Under 'Find a local FNP service': removed links to Hounslow; Warwickshire North; and Warwickshire South and Rugby (as FNP programmes in these areas have been decommissioned); replaced link for Northamptonshire with 2 links for North Northamptonshire and West Northamptonshire; fixed links for Solihull and Warrington. Also restructured the page and updated section headings for clarity. Expanded information on how family nurses work and how the programme is provided.

  2. Removed Salford from ‘Where the FNP programme is delivered in England’ as the service was decommissioned by the local authority.

  3. Updated website addresses for Hampshire, Hounslow, Portsmouth, Salford, Southampton and Wiltshire FNP services. Croydon, Newham, Oldham, and Surrey removed from the list of areas where FNP is provided as these sites have closed.

  4. Removed Southend from the list of sites as it closed on 31 July 2024.

  5. First published.

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