Parents' experiences of early support

In Finland, support for families with children is given, asfar as possible, as part of basic services. However, to sup-port basic services, services of this kind have also beengenerated as the result of several projects. The public sec-tor itself has been reorganized and reformed to moreresemble a project. In this article, the experiences of par-ents with children receiving project-based support arestudied qualitatively. Preventive support was offered viachild health and maternity clinics in the form of homevisiting. The reform of the municipal and service structurehas made the development of preventive services an issueof even greater current relevance. The purpose of thestudy was to collect and explore the experiences of par-ents as reported in their own voices. The research ques-tion is, how did families experience this novel supportmodel in practice? The data consist of interviews with sixclient families, including mothers and fathers, nine par-ents in all. A qualitative and narrative approach to theinterview data was used. Analysis of the interviews yielded the following themes: being critical about the sup-port given, building trust between parents and the professionals and empowering parents through support. According to the results, parents experienced receiving early support, and especially home visiting, as useful. The purpose of home visiting was not always clear to begin with, and consequently, some parents had reservations about them. Experiences of maternity and child health clinics varied. In addition to the health professionals’ skills, their personality, familiarity and supportive and trustful way of working was felt to be most important. Parents felt that their parenting skills and relationships met with approval during the family work. Further research is needed on this kind of early support, especially support delivered at home, to develop these services