CONCORD, New Hampshire—Granite VNA announced Sarah Love, a family support specialist for Healthy Families America (HFA), was recently honored with New Hampshire Home Visiting Learning Hub’s Shining Star Award.
The Shining Star award honors team members in one of the New Hampshire home visitor programs—Healthy Families America, Comprehensive Family Support Services, Kinship Navigation and/or Newborn Navigation programs—who displays a strong work ethic, strive to strengthen their skills and expand their knowledge to better serve the families in their community.
Love has served as an HFA family support specialist for three years, following a career in early childhood education. In this role, she is invited into young families’ and first-time caregivers’ homes to help support their well-being by connecting them to resources for food and housing, helping build a support system and discussing and setting child development goals. She serves families residing in Belknap, Merrimack County and Southern Grafton counties in New Hampshire.
Love’s peer nominators highlighted her ability to quickly connect with parents, establish trust and help them feel seen, heard and valued to empower them on their journey to confident parenting.
"Her dedication, compassion and passion for helping parents develop skills and confidence shines through during every family visit," Granite VNA said.
One nominator noted that Love is, “the soul of home visiting on every front.”
“I’m so grateful to work with Healthy Families America-New Hampshire, and it is an honor to be recognized for the work we do to help families build skills and strengthen their support systems to help them be successful,” said Love. “I’m thankful for the opportunity to support our community in this way—it’s truly an amazing feeling to be welcomed into a family’s home as the first branch of their support system. Parenting can be isolating and lonely—I wish I had a program like this available to me as a young parent.”