Launch of the “Eating Disorders in Pregnancy” animation

The iHV is delighted to be able to share the outputs from working with Greater Manchester and North West Coast iHV PIMH Champions Forum, the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London and others to develop the research base for eating disorders in the perinatal period. We are excited to be supporting the launch of the “Eating Disorders in Pregnancy” animation through a training event on 28 February 2018 (during Eating Disorders week).

Eating Disorders are a serious mental illness, characterised by disturbance of eating that significantly impairs health and psychosocial functioning.

They include:

Anorexia Nervosa
Bulimia Nervosa
Binge Eating Disorder
and Other Specified Feeding and Eating Disorders

They are often associated with depression and anxiety, and have a number of physical, health complications as well.

Eating Disorders can affect people of all ages, gender and cultural background. It is thought that around 7% of women are thought to have an eating disorder in pregnancy and they can have serious consequences for the mother and her baby.

Health visitors are ideally placed to identify and support pregnant women and new mothers who have eating disorders. Involvement with families, right from the antenatal period through until children reach school age, enables a unique opportunity to build strong therapeutic relationships offering the continuity of care that mothers say they want from their healthcare professionals.

The “Eating Disorders in Pregnancy” training event, including the animation launch, is free to attend and we very much look forward to seeing you there!

Event details

Date: 28 February 2018

Time: 4pm – 6pm

NEW VENUE: the event has been moved to a larger venue so that more people can attend

Wolfson Lecture Theatre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College London,
16 De Crespigny Park, Denmark Hill, London SE5 8AF

Download Eating Disorders in Pregnancy event flyer

To book your free place

Go to online booking system

Get your week off to a Best Beginnings

iHV invites you to watch a short maternal mental health film and make a REAL difference to people’s lives all in less than 5 minutes …..

Best Beginnings’ powerful film “My Mental Health Matters” has been nominated for a Charity Film Award. The winner is chosen by PUBLIC VOTE and voting closes on Wednesday 30 November. We would like to help Best Beginnings to win – and invite you to help too!

In 3 simple steps, you can help encourage THOUSANDS of people to watch this important film and increase Best Beginnings’ chances of winning.

Here’s what we’d love you to do:

Watch the film
VOTE
Forward the link to your friends and family and ask them to vote too!

Please watch the film, and then VOTE!

Whether you are young or old, have kids or not, have experienced mental health challenges or not, you can be part of the incredible group of people who are showing the world that maternal mental health matters.

Together we ARE making a difference for future generations.

Institute’s Champions training receives national recognition in mental health awards

The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) is delighted to receive national recognition for its Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Champions Training Programme in the first ever perinatal mental health awards, organised by the Maternal Mental Health Alliance (MMHA) and Mums and Babies in Mind (MABIM).

The iHV’s Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Champions Training Programme was highly commended in the Emma Cadywould Award for Perinatal Mental Health Education and Training 2017. The awards, which were announced on Wednesday 13 September at the first Annual UK Maternal Mental Health Alliance Conference at Imperial College, London, recognised best practice and achievement in the categories of perinatal mental health education and training, perinatal mental health awareness raising, peer support and transgenerational service.

Dr Cheryll Adams CBE, executive director of the Institute of Health Visiting, said:

“The Institute of Health Visiting is proud to receive this prestigious training award which was set up in the name of Emma Cadywould, who tragically lost her life whilst suffering severe postnatal depression.

“Our comprehensive, accredited training, which now reflects the national competencies for perinatal and infant mental health, has been developed over the past five years and consistently attracts wonderful evaluations.

“We have recently extended our training offers to be suitable for all professionals working with women with perinatal mental illness. This has been in response to many requests for multi-professional training from the health, local authority and voluntary sectors. Our current Champions Training ensures that all practitioners working alongside women and their families perinatally are equipped to provide evidence-based and confident support – as of June 2017, we have created over 140 Multi-agency Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Champions, as well as almost 900 health visitor Infant and Perinatal Mental Health Champions whose originally training we know has been cascaded to upwards of 10,000 others.

“This award is a massive credit to the Institute’s team who have worked so hard to develop, refine, deliver and quality assure, and most recently to benchmark our training to the new national standards.”

The winners were presented with their awards by acclaimed author, journalist and psychotherapist Susie Orbach.

Find out more about the iHV’s Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Champions Training Programme

Read the full press release

New report – The performance of the NHS in England in transforming children’s mental health services

The Education Policy Institute has published a new report, The performance of the NHS in England in transforming children’s mental health services, which examines the progress made by the Government in improving children and young people’s mental health services (CAMHS).

The report analyses NHS England’s new ‘Mental Health Five Year Forward View Dashboard’, which tracks the performance of local Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs).

Dr Cheryll Adams CBE, executive director, iHV, commented:

“Clearly there is much to be done to improve child mental health services. Investing upstream into more preventative capacity, such as in health visiting, would help stem the flow of young people requiring help from these services.”

Key findings

When assessing the overall performance of children and young people’s mental health services, we find almost three quarters (73.2 per cent) of CCGs failed to meet NHS England’s own benchmark for improving services.
In order to meet NHS England’s standard for crisis care performance CCGs must have an agreed plan to develop better local services. However, across England, less than a third of CCGs (31.6 per cent) had a fully funded plan to improve crisis care, with one in nine CCGs (10.5 per cent or 22 in total) having no agreed plan or funding set out.
Government policy states that no one under 18 should be treated on an adult ward – yet children spent a total of 2654 nights on an adult ward between July and September 2016. This increased by over a third compared to the last quarter (April to June 2016), although it is not yet possible to establish whether this is due to fluctuation or a longer trend.
There is wide variation between CCG’s planned spending per head – with those in the top quarter spending over £52 per capita, while those in the bottom quarter spend just £23, or less. This suggests that there is a postcode lottery in children and young people’s mental health care.

Read report - The performance of the NHS in England in transforming children’s mental health services

PHE Guidance: Improving the mental health of children and young people

Two new reports to support commissioners in improving the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people.

The mental health of children and young people in England

The mental health of children and young people in London

These reports describe the importance of mental health and wellbeing among children and young people and the case for investment in mental health. They also summarise the evidence of what works to improve mental health among children and young people in order to inform local transformation of services.

New PHE Guidance: Improving the mental health of children and young people

Reports to support commissioners in improving the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people.

Go to PHE Improving the mental health of children and young people

MindEd – educational resources on children and young people’s mental health

MindEd is a free educational resource on children and young people’s mental health for all adults.

MindEd is suitable for all adults working with, or caring for, infants, children or teenagers; all the information provided is quality assured by experts, useful, and easy to understand. We aim to give adults who care for, or work with, young people:

the knowledge to support their wellbeing
the understanding to identify a child at risk of a mental health condition
the confidence to act on their concern and, if needed, signpost to services that can help

MindEd for Professionals & Volunteers

This is for you if you volunteer, work or are studying to work with infants, children or teenagers. MindEd has e-learning applicable across the health, social care, education, criminal justice and community settings. It is aimed at anyone from beginner through to specialist.

MindEd for Families

Are you a parent or carer who is concerned about your child? Or perhaps you just want some hints and tips on parenting? MindEd for Families has online advice and information from trusted sources and will help you to understand and identify early issues and best support your child.

Go to MindEd for Families

New and Updated Good Practice Points

The iHV is delighted to share new Good Practice Points and updates to GPPs, providing up-to-date evidence and references for our Associate members:

NEW: GPP – Postnatal Psychosis

These Good Practice Points, authored by Dr Judy Shakespeare, retired GP, Royal College of General
Practitioners Clinical Champion in perinatal mental health, set out what health visitors need to know about Postnatal Psychosis. They provide up-to-date evidence and references.

GPP - Postnatal Psychosis

UPDATED: GPP – Understanding Mothers’ Mental Health & Wellbeing

UPDATED: GPP – Understanding Fathers’ Mental Health & Wellbeing

These Good Practice Points, authored by Sharin Baldwin, Health Visiting Clinical Academic Lead, London North West Healthcare NHS Trust, set out what health visitors need to know about Understanding both Mothers’ & Fathers’ Mental Health & Wellbeing during their transition to parenthood. They provide up-to-date evidence and references.

Updated October 2016.

Understanding Mothers’ & Fathers’ Mental Health & Wellbeing

Please note that these GPPs are available to iHV members only.

If you’re not a member, please join us to get access to all of our resources.

The iHV is a self-funding charity – we can only be successful in our mission to strengthen health visiting practice if the health visiting profession and its supporters join us on our journey. We rely on our membership to develop new resources for our members.

So do join us now!

iHV supports MMHA response to DH’s Safer Maternity Care report

The iHV supports the Maternal Mental Health Alliance’s (MMHA’s) response to yesterday’s publication of the Department of Health report ‘Safer Maternity Care: Next steps towards the national maternity ambition’.

MMHA highlights the mention of perinatal mental health in the report (on page 17) – but would really like to push for mums’ mental health to be embedded across all of the actions coming out of the report. Maternity safety is not just physical health: unless women’s mental health is looked after, their and their babies’ lives could also be at risk.

Dr Cheryll Adams, Executive Director iHV said:

“iHV supports the push by MMHA to keep maternal mental health at the forefront of the government’s drive to improve maternity care. We welcome the implementation of this plan, including maternal mental health, and call on the government to ensure that specialist mental health support is available in every maternity /health visiting service to provide support to every mother and her family who require this service.”

Dr Alain Gregoire, Chair of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, commented:

“We welcome the announcement by the Secretary of State of a Safer Maternity Care action plan and the inclusion of improvements in perinatal mental health care in this. Mental illnesses are the most common serious health complications of pregnancy and the postnatal period, and a major cause of maternal death. There has been no sign of improvement in the effects of these illnesses on mothers and their babies in the past decades, despite significant improvements in physical health outcomes.”

Read Dr Alain Gregoire's full response and suggestions about how mental health could be embedded into the key themes and recommendations in the report

New report – Better Mental Health For All: A public health approach to mental health improvement

The Faculty of Public Health (FPH) is today [Wednesday 15 June] publishing a ground-breaking report about public mental health, which makes the case for improving mental health for everyone and preventing mental health problems.

“Better Mental Health For All: a public health approach to mental health improvement” is the work of the FPH’s Mental Health Committee in conjunction with the Mental Health Foundation. Public Health England supported the project financially, which enabled the FPH to commission the Mental Health Foundation’s involvement and support for production.

Go to Better Mental Health For All report

Report – Better Mental Health For All
A public health approach to mental health improvement

Professor John Ashton, President of FPH, said: “Mental illness affects everyone – either through our own experience, or our family and friends. Mental, emotional or psychological problems account for more disability than all physical health problems put together. There can be no health without mental health.”

This report focuses on what can be done individually and collectively to enhance the mental health of individuals, families and communities by using a public health approach. It is intended as a resource for public health practitioners to support the development of knowledge and skills in public mental health.

Section one – maps out why mental health is an important and often overlooked aspect of overall health.
Section two – outlines the risk and protective factors through the life course and across communities.
Section three – addresses approaches and interventions to improve mental healthat different stages of the life course and in different settings.
Section four – offers a practical guide to enable practitioners to support their own mental wellbeing.