The Department of Health has awarded a £17.5m contract to three partners, including the Impetus Trust, to grow a national initiative to help young and disadvantaged mothers.

Impetus Trust will help deliver the contract in partnership with the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust and the Social Research Unit. The collaboration will see the scale up of the Family Nurse Partnership which will support 16,000 young and disadvantaged mothers supported by a specialist nurse to bring up their babies until 2015.

Commenting on the announcement, Impetus Trust chief executive Daniela Barone Soares said: “We are pleased to be the first venture philanthropy organisation to be selected by a central government body to co-manage an important part of its strategy to help young disadvantaged mothers bring up their babies.

"The Family Nurse Partnership programme has the potential to transform the lives of tens of thousands of disadvantaged families’ lives, and we are committed to scaling this top-notch delivery model so that more young mothers and young children receive support in those early years to help put them on a path to reach their full potential in life."

The Family Nurse Partnership is an intensive, structured, home visiting programme for first time parents under the age of 20. A specially trained family nurse will visit the mother regularly from early pregnancy until the baby is two years old. 

Impetus Trust also runs an £135m initiative for the Department for Education in partnership with the Sutton Trust. The Education Endowment Foundation Fund helps disadvantaged children in the poorest-performing schools in the UK. 

Impetus Trust is currently in merger talks with the Private Equity Foundation.

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