Temple Health Launches $700K Family Thriving Program
A new trauma-informed initiative aims to integrate caregiver and early childhood support directly into prenatal and postpartum care.
Temple Health has been awarded a $700,000, three-year grant from the William Penn Foundation to develop the Temple Family Thriving Program. The initiative is designed to be trauma-informed, combining caregiver support with early childhood development resources within standard medical visits.
Implementation & Partnerships
The program is based at Temple Women & Families Hospital and collaborates closely with Temple University’s academic training programs.
Services are embedded directly into routine healthcare visits, including:
- Prenatal OB/GYN appointments
- Postpartum stays (24-72 hours)
The program engages the whole family, actively involving partners, fathers, and grandparents. It integrates parenting education, social needs screening, and connections to community-based resources during these critical touchpoints.
Enrollment & Workforce Development
Enrollment Criteria
Roughly 70% of patients are expected to qualify for the program. Eligibility is determined during the second trimester through ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) screenings and assessments of social determinants of health.
Building a Trauma-Informed Pipeline
Service delivery is managed by rotating cohorts of supervised students from Temple University’s Barnett College of Public Health and other universities.
This model aims to build a strong pipeline of future practitioners who are skilled in trauma-informed care, with students from occupational therapy and social work programs leading the interventions.
The Intervention: TBRI Framework
The program is grounded in Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) , which focuses on three core pillars:
- Awareness: Helping caregivers recognize how their own past trauma influences their parenting responses.
- Present-Moment Regulation: Building practical skills for stress management and body-based regulation.
- Relationship-Driven Connection: Strengthening attunement, secure attachment, and responsive caregiving.
Tiered Support Services
Families receive support that matches their needs:
- Initial Tier: Clinical support from trained students and staff.
- Secondary Tier: Structured peer groups for shared learning and connection.
- Intensive Tier: One-on-one support from community health workers, specifically for families facing housing instability or food insecurity.
Key Perspectives
Sharon Kurfuerst, EdD, OTR/L, FACHE, Executive Director of Temple Women & Families Hospital, stated that the grant allows the program to "meet families where they are" and provide whole-family support.
Amy Lynch, PhD, OTR/L, FAOTA, Associate Professor at Temple University, emphasized that pairing insight into past experiences with actionable strategies can "reduce risks of perpetuating intergenerational harm."