Who’s holding the baby? How the right support for professionals and parents is vital to infant mental health

As we know, the early years of a child’s social and emotional development has a huge impact on the rest of their lives – and parents play a vital role in supporting their baby’s mental health during that time.

But also we know it takes a village to raise a child, and health visitors, midwives, social workers and other health and social care workers are part of it, helping parents to keep their babies at the forefront of their minds.

As professionals working around infant and parental mental health, we’ve got a challenging job to do: making sure we’re giving the right support to parents, we’re looking after families, making systems work for vulnerable families, keeping babies safe, making the right choices and, importantly, that we’re looking after ourselves when things get tough.

Join PSS, Everton in the Community, Family Hubs, Lighthouse parenting group and our guest speakers (to be confirmed) for a free conference at Hope University on 12^th June, 9am – 3.30pm, to explore the ways in which we can make sure parents get the help they need – and that we, as professionals, can get support, too.

What will this conference cover?

Through workshops and lectures, our conference will cover:

• How it feels to use social care services, from the perspective of parents we support
• How health visitors can support infant mental health
• How we help families to support infant mental health
• The importance of joint working between perinatal mental health teams, children’s centres and charities like ours
• How we support ourselves and our teams through difficult challenges – for example, when children have been removed from their families
• What we can do to work together as professionals when systems don’t always align with what’s needed to support vulnerable families

Lunch and refreshments will be provided.

Sign up here