Our guest: Tara Sundem, MS APRN NNP-BC, Co-Founder, Executive Director Hushabye Nursery.
In this episode, I speak with Tara Sundem, Co-founder of Hushabye Nursery, about their innovative approach to caring for infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome.
Tara shares how Hushabye’s specialized environment differs from traditional NICU settings, creating better outcomes for both babies and families experiencing the challenges of substance use disorders.
We discuss their holistic, family-centered care model, impressive results, and Tara offers valuable insights for healthcare professionals working with patients affected by substance use disorders. Join us for this enlightening conversation about compassionate, effective healthcare solutions that support both vulnerable infants and their families during a critical time.
Transcript
Terri
Welcome back, listeners, to Diversion Insights. My guest today is Tara Sundam of Hushabye Nursery. She’s a co founder. This podcast will be a little bit different, but I think you’re going to find it fascinating, and you’ll really enjoy hearing about an innovative approach to neonatal abstinence syndrome. Welcome, Tara.
Tara
Thank you. Thanks for having me.
Terri
Let’s start by having you provide the listeners with a little bit about your background and then tell us what led you to start Hushabye Nursery.
Tara
Yeah, I am a neonatal nurse practitioner, so for the last 30 years, I’ve just been taking care of babies, and probably the last 25, my focus was on babies that were the size of a dollar bill. I love taking care of preemies, and that was just my love. And in 2015, we started just seeing a huge influx of babies coming into our neonatal intensive care units. Big babies that were withdrawing, and those little ones just kind of. I wouldn’t say take. Took over the nursery, but it started to become apparent to me that, my goodness, these little ones are here. And when they’re with us, they were with us for a couple months, most of the time without their parents.
Tara
And just realizing that babies did withdraw easier in a quiet, dark environment when the nursery wasn’t that busy with certain nurses, certain doctors, certain nurse practitioners on babies seem to do better. And so I kind of was like, gosh, the energy that we provide goes to the babies, and these babies that are going through that painful withdrawal process feed off of us. And withdrawal for a baby is very much like withdrawal for an adult. One mom explained worse fluid migraine times 100. And when she said that, I went, oh, my gosh, that’s. That’s what we see with babies. I mean, I don’t know that they have a headache, but I do know that they have tummy issues, that they can’t sleep, that they have fevers, they have chills, they shake. I mean, all of those different things, you go, okay, that’s really the pits.
Tara
And I put them in a. An environment that was created for babies that are born premature with heart issues, breathing issues in that type of environment, which is not ideal.
Terri
Yeah. Interesting. Very perceptive of you to start noticing that trend and to even think about that. I’m curious if you were able to make any changes. I’m sure you had suggestions for where you were working and what they could do to improve things.
Tara
Did you.
Terri
Were you able to have any impact in that traditional hospital NICU setting?
Tara
Yeah, I would say a little bit of an Impact. You know when you say you’re so insightful. Well, actually I wasn’t really insightful. I had two, I had three sets of parents that brought it to my attention. And the first two were parents that were in recovery from opiate use disorder. Both prescribed I believe methadone at the time, but both, well, working. I mean they were in recovery but their baby was exposed to methadone so was going through that withdrawal process. And both parents, couple months apart, told me, I mean to me we’re not leaving tonight. And I was like, well why you can’t, there’s no place for you to stay. We didn’t have space. And they told me, well, if, if we leave between 2 and 5am you’re going to give my baby more morphine. They both said the exact same thing.
Tara
I was like, no, that’s not what’s going to happen. Whatever. Kind of made me go huh? And I started looking back at our babies that we had been taking care of and I’m like, by golly, they are getting doses in the middle of the night Q3 hours or Q2 hours or.
Terri
Yeah.
Tara
And more doses were increased between that time and you figure we’re exhausted, we’re tired, night shifter, people that, that they’re different breed, you know, of employee and you know you want it to just be a smooth night. And by 3am you’re exhausted and I don’t care if you’re a night shift person or not. There was definitely a link. And my third set of parents was an adoptive mom and dad. The dad told me that he was not going to leave that night. And I had cared for this family with a previous adoption. So this was their and baby. And they are the sweetest, kindest, just quiet, meek family. And this dad was not meek that day. And he was like, we will never go home if this continues. And I told him, I said, well I was working a 24 hour shift.
Tara
I said, I promise you I will call you in the middle of the night if your little one needs anything. And it happened 2:30 in the morning. I got a call from the nurse, walk in, she’s like, you need to give that baby morphine. Babies are just screaming. She is not happy. I’m like, well I need you to call dad. I picked up baby, I’m trying to do all the things. And I ended up not making a friend with the nurse. She was not happy with me. But I ended up having to take the baby out of the nicu. And broke the rules and brought him into my call room where, which is literally across the, just across the hallway, and made it completely black and took away all the stimulation.
Tara
And I told the dad he had 30 minutes to get to me before I’d give a dose. But he wanted to be able to see it with his eyes before he wanted us to give another dose. And while I’m doing that, I’m realizing that I am like just tense because I had this nurse not happy. All the babies are crying. This baby’s crying. I’m like, oh my gosh. And I was practicing yoga a lot at that time. I was like, you’ve got to get your crap together. And I just took like a deep breath. And when I took that deep breath and held it, that baby cried. But like paused and was like, what did you just do? And I did three of them. And by the time I did three, I interrupted that baby all three times.
Tara
And I also made myself go, okay, I got it together. I, I, I can do this. Then I started doing this bounce thing that now is our squat and started doing shushing, which I knew about. You do. Shh. That’s supposed to be mom’s heart rate. I knew that I never really used it. Started doing a couple other techniques. Well, fast forward that. That that morning that dad knocked on the door. And when he knocked on the door, I had baby sleep. Any other time, any other time I would have saw that baby, I would have given a dose of morphine. I would have went, oh my gosh, you’re exactly right. And I would have went up. And then from that point on, anytime a nurse would call and want another dose, I was like, no, let me come in.
Tara
And you know, it depended on which nursery I was working in. But there was one nursery that had a big closet that literally I’d take babies in the closet and I do the same thing. And I realized that I didn’t have to give them morphine. I could, I could get them settled just by doing non pharmacological measures. So, yeah, insightful, but kind of parents telling me and then going, huh, you don’t have to do it with medicine.
Terri
Right. Realizing it. Okay, so tell us about Hushabye nursery. Obviously you incorporate a lot of these things. Is it a full service?
Tara
Yeah.
Terri
How do they get to you? What, what is it?
Tara
Yeah, so we are a organization, a non profit, that serves families that are pregnant or parenting with substance use or opiate use. We have a 12 bed nursery for those babies that are exposed to opiates. That they can come instead of going to the neonatal intensive care unit, they come to us. And it’s the perfect environment. It’s quiet, one to one, caregivers, private rooms, parents can stay 24, seven with their baby and everyone. The biggest thing is we’re all trauma informed, meaning we don’t know anyone’s journey. But our ultimate goal is as long as mom and dad are healthy, we want a healthy baby. As long as it’s safe, we want family unification. And everyone that works for us or volunteers for us has that same mission and vision. So our ultimate goal is keeping this family together.
Tara
And when you do that baby gets through that withdrawal process easier. We’ve been able to national average time to get a baby through withdrawal is 22 days. We’re at 8. Quiet, dark environment. Less than 10% of our babies get one dose of morphine in the hospital. When a baby gets admitted to the nicu, I’m starting morphine every three hours. That that’s just what I’m doing. And they’re getting it for 21 days on average. And honestly that 20, 21, 22 days is a low number. I’m like, okay, I don’t know where we get that data because I used to tell families and when I still talk to my peers, used to tell families, you’re going to be here for a month, if not two. And it’s a long journey.
Tara
And most the time in the nicu, we don’t really invite families in because, number one, I don’t think we realize their importance. We should, but we don’t. Number two, families that struggle with substance use scare us to death. Behavioral health. I didn’t know anything about behavioral health. And then number three, stigma. I am one of those people that used to feel like this baby’s better off going to foster care. I had no idea the implications with adverse childhood experiences and what I was setting this baby up for. All of those things. We’ve been able to create the environment at Hushabye that we serve the baby. The baby’s a firecracker to get them to go, I want to get well.
Tara
But then we also have a full line of behavioral health services all under the same roof so that the families can get well themselves, all while their baby’s getting well. Now, if they meet us prenatally and we’re getting them into treatment, everything’s great, fabulous. By the time they have their baby, they have all the tools. We’re helping him with child welfare, helping ensure that baby safe and hopefully keeping the Family system unified. But if it’s a mom that used fentanyl five minutes before she delivered and she comes to hushabye, a lot of times that aha moment is in the middle of the night at 2 o’clock in the morning, and when she says she’s ready, I have my team ready to go. So she’s like, I’m ready to go to detox. We know who we can call. We know you know the.
Tara
The specifications for each place so that we’re able to break down the barriers to increase the success of getting them in the door, but also increasing the success to that mode of treatment really working because at least know what to expect. They do so much better.
Terri
Yeah. Okay. There’s a lot there. So let’s. For the babies, let’s go back to the babies. How long have your doors been opened and how many babies have you served so far?
Tara
We opened mid Covid November 2020 and we’ve served 964 babies.
Terri
Wow, that’s a lot of babies. And how do the babies come to you? Do they deliver in a traditional hospital and then get transferred to you?
Tara
Yes. So they deliver at the hospital. Hopefully that’s where they deliver, see home delivery. They go to the hospital, get assessed, and then come to us. Hopefully at 24 hours of age. We want them before they escalate. And if they escalate at the hospital and get started on. On morphine, when they come to us, it’s not like we can just go cold turkey. Sometimes we can if they’re not on too high of a dose, but they’ve already been started on morphine. If they come to us, about 50% still need to be on morphine. And we slowly take it off, but we take it off quicker than what you would do in a hospital setting.
Terri
Okay. Yeah. I imagine it’s just part of the order set in a hospital.
Tara
Yeah.
Terri
Pretty quickly. Yeah. And a delivery nightmare for the pharmacy department, I might add.
Tara
Yeah.
Terri
But anyway, that’s not what this podcast is about, so. Okay, so do you have a relationship with the local hospitals then? They all know about you. They take advantage for them.
Tara
The hospitals we still work for. It’s a challenge for hospital systems to see us as a partner versus a competitor. Well, yeah, if the hospitals are busy. If they’re busy, we are busy. If not, I mean, babies on average to the hospital. A low estimate is 40 grand for a baby that’s admitted to the NICU. So we’re taking revenue from them. But when you look at the impact that we’re making financially just to Arizona or to the country. We’re about $10,000 a hospital stay. So when you’re looking at 95% of my families are Medicaid, this is our dollar somewhere. You know, new administration, everybody is trying to save money. We’re kind of that no brainer. But it is something different and not been done anywhere in the country.
Terri
Yeah. And there again, I mean, if they see your statistics and how successful you are, it’s a shame that it’s not the big picture of. Okay, this is just what’s healthier. So we have to, that’s where we need to make our money somewhere else and go with that. And I would imagine insurances. Love you. I’m, you know, I, I would think at some point it might get to the point where they say, if Hushaby has a space, we’re not going to pay for you to keep this patient. You need to transfer them.
Tara
I, I hope that someday gets there. Yeah. I, I’m hoping that we’ll get there. I, we share our data with everyone because it is definitely braggable data.
Terri
Yeah.
Tara
The hospital systems do not share. So knowing what their data is would be very helpful for the boots on the ground, you know, for nurses to advocate for their clients. A lot of providers, a lot of nurses don’t understand what we do. You know, I’m like, please come and see. See, come actually see what it looks like. So you can feel comfortable sending a mom and a baby to us. Many go, we provide that exact same care. And I’m like, but you don’t. You, you have no idea. Even even though we’ve tried to explain it, you really have to see it. And so I don’t know. That all comes down to money. I think it comes down to just not understanding.
Terri
Sure. Well, yeah, I mean, it’s, you know, traditional medicine. And if that’s what you’re used to, and that’s what a lot of people are used to, they can’t imagine that. Okay, make it a little bit quieter. But you know what is the value of the rest of it? We pretty much do the same thing. So I could see that definitely. Okay. All right. So you talked about being that holistic approach and family oriented because your goal is to keep the babies with the parents. So let’s talk about that a little bit. If you’ve got somebody that has a substance use disorder and they’ve delivered and you allow them to remain in the nursery, is that, I mean, I could see how people would have trouble with that. Just from a philosophical perspective, right? It’s like, okay, you.
Terri
Yeah, you’ve got trauma, you’ve got a disease. But at the same time, this is what you did. This is the risk to your child, the chances of you coming out of this in order to actually raise this child in a healthy way. So talk about that a little bit. How do you guys approach that?
Tara
Yeah, meeting. Meeting the parents. Where they’re at is the biggest. Most of our families, when they first reach out to us, they’re reaching out for their baby. They’re not reaching out for them. They. They want to. This wasn’t, for the most part,
not a planned pregnancy. They’re scared to death, and they just want a healthy baby. And so they’re calling, saying, how do you. How do you help me help my baby? And then the second question is, does I want to keep my baby? And so initially, we meet them with, let’s teach you how to put a diaper on. Let’s help you get a car seat. Let’s talk about safe sleep. Let’s give them parenting skills. And as they do that, you know, a couple groups, we do about 60 groups a month, hybrid. So they jump on groups.
Tara
They start going, oh, my gosh, these guys are different. They care. They’re. They’re not that other people don’t care, but we’re different. Behavioral health.
Terri
Well, you take the time. Yeah, you take the time to.
Tara
Yeah. And. And so they’re like, this is different. And as they’re talking to each other on group, we have, you know, people that have been in recovery for years, and their baby has been through hushaby, and they’re still working with us, and they have moms that are just connected with us that maybe used 15 minutes ago, but they’re going, so you’re saying, I can actually raise my child and I can actually do this. And slowly but surely, you. You see that you’ve built up trust. And they’ll talk to Sally and be like, sally, where did you go? What did you do? And they will. They will say, tara, I’m. I want to go to that place. How do you. How do I get in there? And then my team does that for them. My team will fill out the application, fill them.
Tara
If they need, you know, an id, we get the id, we take away all of the barriers and work with our community partners so that they’re successful. We also have our own standard behavioral health therapy, but if someone’s ready for residential treatment or detox, that’s using community partners. But also us being able to inform the family of when you go to this center, you’re not going to get your phone for a year. If families get there and they get told that all they need is one way to say no, and they get there and go, yeah, no, there is no way I’m going to do that. And so we just lost that. Instead we say, here’s your three choices. Here’s the nuances of 1, 2 and 3. Which one sounds good?
Tara
So that when they get there, they’re prepared and there’s no way for them to say no at that time. Not that they can’t say no, but it makes it that our success is huge. We have over 60% of our families that come to us that have not been in treatment after they’ve had their babies. If they come, 2/3 of them are getting into treatment and that is an unheard of number in behavioral health. And babies are that change maker. They see their baby and they’re like, you know what? I’ve got to do it now. If I’m going to do it, I’ve got to. And believe that trauma informed way of approach is what makes all the difference for them. And some aren’t ready for recovery until their baby rights have been severed. Some, you know, aren’t ready until after they meet their baby.
Tara
Whenever they’re ready, we’re jumping at the chance and going, I’m so proud of you. Our very first words. Any family, like, if I meet them this weekend, I took care of babies and we had six families and all six of them. Very first word out of my mouth was, congratulations. And my gosh, one of the moms, I’m like, dang, you look good. You must have slept last night, you know, and another one, I’m like, look at your baby. Baby’s cheeks. You did such a good job. These are simple, easy, loving, kind ways to approach a population that is scared, hopeless, and trust no one. And that’s the difference that we go about. And it’s so simple. But it’s just not done.
Terri
Yeah. And I, I imagine in a traditional setting, traditional nicu, there’s not that. I mean, we can’t help it. We tend to be judgmental and it’s, you know, I’ve got this screaming kid that I have to deal with all day and try to. This poor little thing. But you did this. And so there’s probably not a lot of that kind of tolerance. So a whole different attitude and approach.
Tara
It’s, it’s totally, it’s a totally different attitude and story. I mean, this is. This is to the extreme, but it’s really not, because I’m sure this happens all the time. And it would explain why, in my experience, most of the families weren’t around in the nicu, meaning the ones that had babies that were born as substance exposed. But one. One day I was caring for a baby in. In the nicu. When you come in the nicu, you have to wash your hands. And this mom came in. She. This was when heroin was the. The drug that was out there. And she was an IV heroin user. But when she came in, she looked like she was. Well, at the time, she didn’t seem like she was under the influence.
Tara
She’s washing her hands, and the nurse, she’s looking over at her baby, smiling, so excited to see her baby. And the nurse looks at her and, like, points across the room and says, don’t touch your baby. And the mom was like. And I’m watching it happen. The words already came out. I’m like, I don’t even know what is going down here, but this is not good. And the mom finishes washing her hands. She’s trying to not cry. She goes. And she sits down. Her baby had a really hard night, and he had. He literally had just fallen asleep. And so I understood where the nurse was coming from, but the. The way she approached it was not appropriate. So I went over to the mom, and I’m like, oh, my gosh, we’re so glad you’re here. He needs you.
Tara
As soon as he wakes up, I’m sure he’s gonna wake up. He’s gonna need you. And I explained, you know, where he was, how he was struggling through the night, whatever. And 30 minutes later, he’s still sleeping. All she did was just stare at him, had him in his bassinet, didn’t touch him, didn’t look anywhere. And go back over after 30 minutes. And I’m like, oh, my gosh, he knows that you’re here. Please stay. He needs you. This is amazing. He needed a really good sleep. And she stayed for another 30 minutes. And that day, when she left, she never touched her baby. She never kissed him goodbye, and she never came back.
Terri
And he.
Tara
We, as providers, as a community, had an opportunity to help. And that mom just showed up for a baby, and. And we. We treated her less than. And, yeah, nobody deserves that. And that baby would be eight years old now. And I know he went to foster care, but there was no family. We couldn’t find anybody. And to not go. That we. That that nurse’s words didn’t have some impact would be remiss.
Terri
Yeah. How do you. If your stay is eight days, I think is what you said, and somebody, even if they do get into treatment right away eight days later.
Tara
Correct.
Terri
You know, it’s very tenuous. So how do you bridge that?
Tara
Yeah. So if so, say they’re new to treatment, so they used five minutes before they deliver. More than likely they’re going to go to treatment and baby’s not going to be able to go to treatment with them because they’re so new to recovery. I’ve one time had it where there was one institution that had the resources to be able to do it, but one out of so many, that’s just too new. But what we’re doing is we’re working with grandma and grandpa, aunt and uncle, friend, we’re working with everyone trying to keep baby out of foster care so that baby can visit more often and keep families with hope and get them through that. But say we meet a mom a month before delivery and we get her into treatment, she delivers baby.
Tara
We have, I believe, five different facilities that our child welfare trusts that we work with, that if they’re in residential treatment, we can get them to discharge baby with mom while they’re at residential treatment and they all heal together. And we work with those community partners. So say baby’s having a really hard night. They can call us and we’ll be like, okay, help her do this, help her do that. Have her, you know, take those deep breaths. Have her do all of these things. Because when babies leave us, even when they leave the hospital, they’re done going through the hard part of withdrawal. They’re not done going through withdrawal. Withdrawal in the literature says it can go nine months, but when I talk to parents, it’s on and off for about a year.
Terri
Well, and even if they’re not in withdrawal, it’s just hard to be a parent of a newborn.
Tara
Totally.
Terri
I mean, it’s so true.
Tara
It’s so true. And so, yeah, so if. If they’re new that new to recovery, probably baby’s not going home with them. I did have a mommy that recently that she’s just a rock star, but she was homeless, didn’t have food, didn’t have a safe place to sleep. She came to us and she didn’t use again. She’s like, we got her into treatment. We. She was. She was already being prescribed methadone, but didn’t have transportation to get to the clinic. Didn’t have, you know, a phone, didn’t have anything. And in the time that she was with us, in the nine days that she was with us, were able to get her to the clinic every single day so that her dose was where it needed to be. She was not using. She still is not using. Usually.
Tara
When were talking about when baby went to foster care because then she was going to a treatment center, she goes, you know, how long do you think it will before we’re reunified? And I said, at least six months. You’re gonna have to do all the right things, jump through all the hoops. It’s gonna be six months and 10 weeks. They got reunified.
Terri
Wow.
Tara
She. She’s just rocking it. And she really used child welfare as a partner in ensuring that her baby was safe versus it being punishment. And so really changing that mindset makes DCS go okay. So we’re having open conversations that are all in the direction of how do we ensure that your baby’s safe? And that’s what we’ve been able to help families understand that. Be transparent. Say what your needs are, tell them that you want a parent, and just have those open, honest conversations. And the families that are working with us, prenatally, even one visit, prenatally, if you’re connected, 83% of those families are taking their babies home safely. 83% in the hospital. It’s probably less than 25%.
Terri
Yeah. And I imagine child welfare stays with them for a certain amount of time to make sure there’s no.
Tara
Yeah, they absolutely do. And, you know, they’re. Of course, they’re having to go do drug testing three times a week. They’re making sure that they’re doing their check ins. They’re absolutely okay doing what they need to do to ensure that the babies are safe. And we’ll do the same. Say a mom calls us and there’s been an oopsie or a lapse in recovery. We’re telling them that we need to call together. We need to call DCS together. Number one, we’re going, where is baby? Isn’t baby safe? But then number two, we’re going, okay, we have to report. But what happens usually when we report that, because oopsies do happen, they’re like, thank you for calling. We’re going to come out, we’re going to talk to you at home. We’re going to figure out what happened. Usually there’s a domestic violence. There’s.
Tara
I lost my job. I, you know, didn’t get my paycheck. There’s something that triggered that oopsie, and if we can figure out what that is, we can prevent it from happening. And that’s just a different way of approaching opiate use disorder that just hasn’t been in the past before. In the past, if there was an oopsie, absolutely, that baby needs to be removed. But there’s other ways, other safety measures that we can put into place. You know, have grandma move in, have, you know, aunt and uncle, you know, come in and help so that we ensure that baby can stay together. Or we go back to that residential treatment that does let kiddos come. People go, oh, my gosh, you’re going to have them there.
Tara
Believe it or not, that is studies show adverse childhood experiences and attachment and bonding, all of those things support that research supports keeping babies together with their moms and dads as long as it’s safe. And we’re supposed to be evidence based in the nicu. We’re supposed to be evidence based. When you look at that evidence, we really should demand this shift in care model for this type of patient.
Terri
Right. How do you advocate for the parents being there in the NICU and that holistic. What do you do for those that aren’t ready to go through treatment and they show up and they’re clearly impaired, do allow them to hold their baby and have time.
Tara
Well, okay, so I’m not going to allow them to hold their baby, but I want them there. So usually when they come in, I mean, we have, we’re locked unit. You have to go through two locked doors. We have security. We, I’d be worried about.
Terri
So, yeah, I’d be worried about bad behavior too. Like, what drug are you on?
Tara
Yeah, you know, they can’t be, they cannot be dangerous or violent or anything like that. Fentanyl. People are pretty laid back. I mean, they’re, they’re there to see their baby. At one time I’ve had a parent that has been obnoxious out of 900 plus. Okay, one. But it all is about the approach. So say they come in impaired again. I’m going, congratulations. Look at your baby. You did such good work. They’re postpartum, so they’re exhausted. They probably haven’t had a shower. They probably haven’t eaten. And if you’ve used fentanyl, you want to go nanite. We have Narcan in every room. And so the first thing is I’m saying I’m gonna hold your baby while we get you in the shower. I’m Gonna hold your baby while we get you food. I’m gonna hold your baby while you take a nap.
Tara
They all are like, okay, sounds good. You’re taking care of me. Nobody’s taking care of me. This is wonderful. When they wake up, I grab one of my peer supports that has been through our program that now works for us, and I’m like, get in there. They’re awake. They’re not under the influence anymore. I want you to tell them your story. And believe it or not, so many times, that’s when they’re like, you know, they share a picture of their. Their kiddos, and they’re like, look at this is what I’ve done. And they’ll show a picture of when they were totally, you know, high in their addiction. And they’re going, that was me. And this is me now. And now I’m helping. And you can be there, too. And that’s the magic that happens at Hushabye, that in the hospital you come under.
Tara
In the. Under the influence, you’re not welcome in. I don’t want my families to leave an overdose. And the likelihood of an overdose in the United States any single day is very high. And, yeah, I want them to be around. And so as long as they’re not dangerous or disruptive, they’re going to hold their baby. Right. Or not. They’re going to hold their baby. They’re going to be invited inside. Yeah, absolutely. Not Going to let them hold their baby while they’re under the influence.
Terri
Right. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. All right, so you’ve spent time now at Hushabye, obviously, but also traditional hospital. Do you have any words of wisdom for the nurse or the provider who encounters a patient who presents with an abnormal drug screen? Right. They’ve delivered. They’re preparing to deliver. I don’t even know how. Like you. You don’t do well. I don’t think I got a drug screen when I delivered you. When do you decide when to do a drug screen? I guess is my question on somebody but you. They present with an abnormal drug screen.
Tara
Yeah.
Terri
So how is that conversation?
Tara
You do a drug screen, you have to ask for permission. And the people that get drug screens. Sorry, I’m gonna see. Maybe I thought I was gonna sneeze, but you kind of have to flip the bill or you have to admit to it, you know, saying that I am. I do struggle with this. Otherwise, no prenatal care.
Terri
Maybe. Maybe someone that comes in with no prenatal care, you might wonder. Yeah, okay.
Tara
You know, where you Go. Okay, this is a risk. But for my peers, using the words, it seems like you’re struggling using an abnormal drug screen versus a positive or clean or dirty. You know, your drugstream shows Fentanyl. The struggle’s real.
We’re here and how can we help? You know, what does that look like? But instead of saying you’re addicted, struggle really works. If someone’s under the influence, it seems like you’re really struggling right now. Those words make people go, yeah, I am struggling. It’s. They know what I’m talking about when I use that. Because they could be. They know it, that it’s that they’re under the influence, but they’re also struggling just in life. And so it’s like they’re being seen and heard. All, all with just switching that wording around really, starting with congratulations, number one.
Tara
They showed up at the hospital and they delivered at the hospital. That’s a win. They didn’t deliver at home. They didn’t put their baby in a dumpster. I mean, we’ve got to look at the things that we go, oh, my gosh, they showed up under the influence. No, they showed up. You know, they talked, but they, we couldn’t understand them. It sounded like they were slowing their words. They called. I, I. So just kind of looking at how do we look at the upside of any situation and going for that and doing strength based, A strength based approach. Okay.
Terri
Yeah, that makes sense. All right. So you’re in Arizona.
Tara
Yes.
Terri
I don’t know how practical it would be for someone to transfer over there. Do you even offer this to people outside of Arizona or you’re strictly in your local space.
Tara
We’re strictly in our local space right now. I mean, all of Arizona we can serve, so we can. You just have to be an Arizona resident. But if there’s someone outside of the United States or of Arizona, I, I would not hesitate to try to direct you to another organization or community partner that’s doing similar work. More and more people are trying to do something very similar. Similar to us. Every state has different government legislation, Medicaid, all of the, Everything looks different that I might know of some organization that at least has the trauma informed approach might get you somewhere.
Terri
Right. That makes sense. Okay, great. All right. Well, this was great. It’s fascinating. I think it’s great that the work that you’re doing, it seems to really be making a difference. And you know, it’s those kiddos that I’m most thinking of right. You want to provide them a stable home. You certainly don’t want that cycle again. And, yeah, this is the beginning of maybe trying to break that cycle. So thank you for what you’re doing, Tara.
Tara
Thank you. Thank you for your time. I so appreciate it.
Terri
Thank you very much for that. And thank you, listeners, for listening. Hit that subscribe button so you are made aware of every episode that comes out. And thank you for listening.
