[Project "FrühStart"--family midwives in Saxony-Anhalt. Their networking with other health care and child welfare professionals and subjective view of the families].

The project "Family midwives in Saxony-Anhalt" was evaluated by a multidimensional approach in order to document the subjective perspective of the mothers as well as the networking of health care and child welfare professionals, while caring for highly vulnerable families. The documentation of 734 cases and quantitative data of 33 family midwives were analyzed. Ten mothers were interviewed and problem-focused expert interviews were carried out with 39 health care and child welfare professionals. The method of coding the interview texts was both open and guided by the research questions. After finishing the qualification course and while caring for highly vulnerable families, the networking of family midwives with child welfare professionals significantly increased. Besides the family midwives and the youth welfare office, the antenatal counseling centers were important "gatekeepers". An important ingredient for constructive networking and care for families is trust which draws on client-oriented care, availability, and advocacy by the family midwives. While the family midwives are respected as partners by the professionals of the child welfare system, networking with obstetricians and hospitals is unsatisfactory. In order to improve this, the latter must be a future goal.