Healthy Start Alumni Peer Navigator Program Harnesses the Power of Lived Experience

In the summer of 2023, the Alumni Peer Navigator (APN) Services pilot was established as a 1-year pilot through the U.S. Digital Service (USDS) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Healthy Start Initiative. The program is facilitated by the Healthy Start TA & Support Center (TASC), which provides training and technical assistance (TA) to support Healthy Start (HS), Healthy Start-Enhanced (HSE), and Catalyst grantees in improving their maternal and child health service delivery. 

At the time of establishment, the pilot included six sites: Greater Harlem Healthy Start at Northern Manhattan Perinatal Partnership (New York, NY), Center for Black Women’s Wellness (Atlanta, GA), Family Road of Greater Baton Rouge (Baton Rouge, LA), Great Plains Tribal Leader’s Health Board Healthy Start (Rapid City, SD), Pee Dee Healthy Start, Inc. (Florence, SC), & SHIELDS for Families Healthy Start (Los Angeles, CA). Later, the New York site transitioned out, and Delta Health Alliance (Stoneville, MI) joined the pilot. 

The APN project is centered around the vision of “collective motherhood,” an approach inspired by the principles of collective impact and the practices and experiences of the pilot sites. Uplifting the lived experience of being a former Healthy Start participant and accessing community resources is a key tenet of the collective motherhood vision. For this project, each APN has the specific experience of being a former participant of a Healthy Start (HS) program.  APNs are hired as staff and compensated for their time and expertise. APNs receive training about how to utilize their lived experience to help mothers and families in the program. This project model helped ensure existing organization staff were not overburdened and could focus on their core services, such as case management.  

By pairing families with peers who understood the complex process of applying for benefits, APNs were able to provide consistent, compassionate support and assistance in solving problems. The APN project helped develop a trusted bridge of understanding and experience, which created a powerful network of support for moms and families.   

Since the APN services pilot launched, 15 peer navigators have served over 200 families across the six HS sites in tribal, urban, and rural communities throughout the United States. Additionally, the program received the 2024 Don Norman Design Award for Excellence in recognition of the success of its peer-navigator service model.  

The Alumni Peer Navigator (APN) project was so special — and so needed — in this time when service organizations and teams are being asked to do more, often with finite resources and staff.  – Kim Sprunck, Director of Program Operations, National Institute for Children’s Health Quality (NICHQ)

In response to a request for enhanced training, a self-paced online Alumni Peer Navigator course was developed to support APNs in their work. This course is housed in the Healthy Start Hub, a community platform for HS grantees and partners (e.g., subject matter experts, TASC staff, Division of Healthy Start & Perinatal Services staff) to connect, engage in discussions, and share resources. The course is intended to be a standardized part of training for HS APNs to provide a common foundation, shared across HS programs nationwide, of the basic perinatal health knowledge and skills needed to effectively serve HS participants. Each section of the course focuses on one of the core knowledge areas for HS APNs and notably also spends significant time on the unique and important role of peer navigators.  

One prominent focus of the recent 2025 Healthy Start All-Grantee Annual meeting (AGM) was storytelling. The TASC collected stories from grantees detailing the background that motivated them to work with Healthy Start. Due to the novelty of the pilot program, capturing the APN perspective was essential. 

“And I came out of that knowing that I did not want other people to feel how I felt, did not want other people to not be able to get the resources that really [are] at our fingertips…So, being [an] APN like I said, it’s just being able to pay it forward,”- Myisha Morris, Alumni Peer Navigator, Family Road of Greater Baton Rouge 

Sprunck also felt the positive influence of the APNs and the program on the wider Healthy Start community during the AGM.

“I had the great honor and joy of meeting many of the APNs at the Healthy Start AGM and heard their ‘why’ of doing this work—truly inspiring! In the end, every site reported overwhelmingly positive benefits from participating in the project, noting how it strengthened their ability to meet the needs of the families they serve. The only major downside noted was how deeply they’ll miss the project — and the incredible APNs who made it so impactful. NICHQ is truly grateful to have been part of this important work, and we, too, will miss the Healthy Start APN teams and staff who brought such dedication and heart to the project,” Sprunck said. 

Learn more about the Alumni Peer Navigator services pilot and explore the Alumni Peer Navigator (APN) Services Playbook – one resource available to help guide HS sites in implementing APN services within their existing HS project or inspire the creation of more accessible and impactful support systems for families.  

The Healthy Start TA & Support Center is operated by the National Institute for Children’s Health Quality™. This project is supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number UF5MC32750 titled Supporting Healthy Start Performance Project. This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.