Programs for new parents discussed at health committee meeting

MLAs heard details about a new nurse-family partnership program at the provincial government’s health committee meeting on Tuesday.

The meeting discussed the early year programs being offered by Public Health, specifically referencing the newest program.

The program, which was first funded in 2023, focuses on supporting pregnant people and new parents for the first 1,000 days of a child’s life through services such as home visits and general guidance throughout those first two years. 

MLAs from Nova Scotia’s three major political parties shared common ground in expressing support for the program, although some questions on funding, access to assessments for autism and fetal alcohol syndrome and the program’s overall benefits were raised in the process. 

Ryan Sommers, the senior regional medical officer of health, says studies show the first 1,000 days of life are the “most crucial” for a child’s development and influence their “lifelong health, learning and well-being.”

“For Nova Scotia, approximately one in four children enter school with a developmental vulnerability that limits their ability to fully benefit from the education system. Addressing these challenges later is significantly more costly than early prevention,” Sommers said.

The program, which was first launched in Nova Scotia’s Eastern Zone in March 2024, pairs families with a nurse they work closely with, beginning in pregnancy and throughout a child’s first two years. The structure was influenced by similar programs in Ontario and British Columbia that had previously seen positive results. 

In June 2025, Nova Scotia became the first in Canada to offer the program provincewide. Marcia DeSantis, the senior director for population and public health for the province, says about eight per cent of pregnant women could meet the criteria for the program. 

DeSantis says the program is not yet at capacity and currently has around 120 families enrolled without a waitlist, while the Enhanced Home Visiting program has 500 families enrolled. 

Because the program is so new, there are no families that have completed it, but DeSantis says that they are building a family health module to track information on its progress.

The program is funded on a year-to-year basis, and they are waiting to see whether the budget process will allow the program to continue.

Its budget for this fiscal year was $10.4 million.

“I think public health has what I would consider a relatively small budget in comparison to some of the more acute care and ambulatory care services,” DeSantis said.

“And in the past, we have like, very recently with the enhancement to the nurse family partnership program, we’ve been very successful in continuing to grow our programs and services. And so I would say we eagerly wait to hear what comes of the budget and we will respond to whatever the decision is,” she said.

At last week’s meeting of the provincial Progressive Conservative Party, Premier Tim Houston said there would be significant cuts to programs in the 2026-27 provincial budget to come out in the coming weeks.

One thing the program has made an effort to focus on in the last few years has been a shift to prenatal referrals.

Jen MacDougall, a manager in Public Health, said doing so would have the “greatest impact” to build trust and start building goals for those parents, even before a child is born.

MacDougall says they hope to have 60 per cent of families registered in the program enrolled by 16 weeks of pregnancy. 

The program is free, and nurses can travel to a client’s home, though drop-in locations are also available. 

More information on how to sign up for early years programs can be found here.