DENVER, CO (August 29, 2017) – Nurse-Family Partnership ®, a national, evidence-based home visiting program serving first-time moms and their children living in poverty, is pleased to announce the appointment of Christian Soura, vice president of the South Carolina Hospital Association to the Nurse-Family Partnership board of directors.
Soura is a former director of South Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services and also led its Medicaid program. “Christian has been a steadfast partner and supporter of Nurse-Family Partnership over the years; most recently, leading our first Pay for Success project in South Carolina,” said Robert Hill, chairman of the Nurse-Family Partnership board of directors.
In innovative Pay for Success projects, government agencies provide payments to private investors only when Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) achieves the project’s outcome goals for moms and babies. As part of the project, Soura also was able to lead the investment of Medicaid funding to help more families achieve better maternal and child health outcomes in South Carolina.
Hill called Soura “a change-maker who is committed to finding innovative solutions to alleviate poverty in our country. His deep understanding of Medicaid policy and human services will keep us thinking strategically and creatively on behalf of families. We are incredibly fortunate to have him at the table with us.”
Soura said he became familiar with Nurse-Family Partnership’s work in his previous positions, and has seen its success firsthand. “Nurse-Family Partnership has been effective and successful because it is the most rigorously evaluated nurse home-visiting program in the world. Four decades of studies and refinement have produced a model that has a dramatically positive and independently verified impact on first-time mothers and their babies,” he said.
As a member of the NFP board, Soura said his goal will be to expand the program’s use of public-private financing partnerships “so more individuals and communities can benefit from NFP’s proven methods.”