24th August 2017
Today’s #HVWeek topic: Maternal and Infant Mental health – a government priority.
What local initiatives have been developed? How do you raise its profile so that families are more easily able to speak out?
Welcome to Day 4 of national #HVweek
Today’s practice theme focuses on maternal and infant mental health – subjects very close to us here at the Institute. We know that:
- Mental health problems in the perinatal period effect 1 in 5 women
- New fathers’ depression rates are double the national average for men in the same age group
- 122,000 babies under one are living with a parent who has a mental illness
- The mental health of parents in the perinatal period can have long-term effects on the infant, especially in relation to their later emotional and behavioural development
Please do continue to tweet and send us your contributions this week – we would love to hear about perinatal and infant mental health initiatives in your community and showcase the fantastic work by health visitors out there.
We have a wealth of resources and materials to share with you below, to support you to work with confidence alongside families perinatally, providing evidence-based care underpinned by the growing number of local care pathways for perinatal and infant mental health.
Training
Since 2015, we have trained 550 HV Perinatal Mental Health Champions, and almost 300 HV Infant Mental Health Champions. More recently, we have extended our training to multi-agency audiences (with in excess of another 400 multi-agency PMH and PIMH Champions trained) in recognition of the seamless and integrated working required to support women and their families perinatally for good outcomes.
We are about to launch our new Fathers and PMH training course – so do keep an eye out for it!
e-learning
Based on our Champions training, our e-learning modules are designed to build on the theoretical underpinning that you use in practice, whilst refreshing and updating your practice. Why not complete a module today?
Good Practice Points (for members only)
If you are a member, why not access our Good Practice Points (GPP) around mental health and wellbeing?
Videos
For those short of time, our videos are excellent, easy-view, short clips from national experts: Dr Jane Hanley on Maternal Mental Health; Dr Liz MacDonald-Clifford on Post-partum Psychosis
Parent Tips
We have a selection of top tips for parents on perinatal and infant mental health which we encourage you to share with your families:
Please note that some of these resources are available to iHV members only.
Many of the products highlighted will be those that are freely accessible on our website to non-members. However, as a not-for-profit organisation we are reliant on our members to contribute and to support us in our journey supporting you.
Remember, if you do like what you see and you would like to access the full range of resources you can join us as an Associate member or Friend for just £6.50 a month. Your subscriptions for professional membership will attract tax relief as the iHV is now HMRC approved. As a basic rate tax payer, this could mean relief of over £15 a year on your annual subscription.
So do join us now!
