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

iHV responds to ‘Every mother must get the help they need’ report

The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) responds to the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) report ‘Every mother must get the help they need’ report published this week. The report was inspired by the Change.org petition of Lucie Holland whose sister, Emma, died in tragic circumstances as a result of perinatal mental illness.

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

“The remarkable efforts of Lucie Holland and her family following Emma’s tragic death serve as a moral imperative for national commissioning bodies, and also for every commissioner at every local level, so that such a tragedy should never happen again. We need to broaden perceptions of mental health, so that all women and their families, and all health and social care professionals consider mental health equal to physical health.”

Lucie set up the petition in 2015 calling for better awareness and care for those affected by perinatal mental illness. Her petition received thousands of signatures and many people left heartfelt comments about their own experiences. The RCM collated and analysed all the comments to form the report ‘Every mother must get the help they need’.

Dr Adams continued:

“It is vital that all practitioners working alongside women and their families in the perinatal period are competent, confident and committed to ensuring that the right care, at the right time, is available in the right place for all women and their families. Specialist midwives and specialist health visitors should be in post at every local level as part of a comprehensive specialist perinatal mental health service offer. The Institute is committed to working in partnership with all agencies to achieve the highest standard of care all mothers and their families deserve.”

iHV delighted to sponsor Good Practice of Care for Women with Mental Health Conditions during Pregnancy

During Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week, we are delighted announce our sponsorship of the Good Practice of Care for Women with Mental Health Conditions during Pregnancy conference – taking place in London on Friday 23 June.

This one-day conference seeks to bring together those professionals along the Perinatal Mental Health pathway of care to understand what constitutes good practice of care for women with mental health conditions during pregnancy. This is one of the things the iHV works very hard to do through our multi-agency training. We know that if you bring representatives of the whole care pathway together at a local level- good things begin to happen.

Download our Perinatal and Infant Mental Health training brochure

Download conference flyer for more details

Exciting and unique development opportunity with the Institute

An exciting and unique development opportunity has arisen with the Institute – Professional Development Officer, Perinatal and Infant Mental Health, South of England.

The iHV is seeking to appoint a part-time (2 days a week) health visitor expert in perinatal and infant mental health to work with them supporting training and various other related projects, as well as covering some national meetings.

The post holder, who will have a Masters’ degree, will be based in the south and will be prepared to travel within the post. They will ideally be an iHV infant and perinatal mental health champion, have broad experience in these fields, with additional research experience and/or iHV Fellowship an advantage.

For further details, job description and application form

Applications close: 5pm on Friday, 10 March 2017

Interviews: Friday, 17 March 2017

iHV welcomes the results of the ‘Women’s Voices’ survey run by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

Women with mental health problems during and after pregnancy reveal the impact of low rates of specialist referral, long waits, as well as lack of consensus over medication and little support for their partners, in a survey published today (22 February) by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) and supported by the Maternal Mental Health Alliance (MMHA).

The survey of over 2,300 women who had given birth in the last five years in the UK, explores their experiences of perinatal mental health problems, engagement with healthcare professionals and the quality of care they received.

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

“The Institute of Health Visiting, a member of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, welcomes the results of the ‘Women’s Voices’ survey run by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and launched today.

“This survey gives real life evidence on the level of support that women receive when suffering from perinatal mental illness (PMI) – and the variation there is in the level of services across the country. Health visitors are key healthcare professionals who are well-placed to identify and offer support to women suffering with PMI. However, our own surveys have shown that, although parents will turn to their health visitor for support, there is often insufficient time for the health visitor to offer the level of support required.

“We, at the iHV, deliver perinatal mental health (PMH) and infant mental health training to ensure standardised practice for health visitor professionals and the families they work with. Our PMH training has now been delivered to well over 10,000 health visitors and others across England. However, for this training to have the impact it should, more health visitors need the time to use what they have learnt to improve services, especially at the recommended contacts.

“Perinatal mental health is an incredibly important area of healthcare which can have a negative effect on the health and wellbeing of babies and families and ultimately on our society when we don’t recognise it early. Health visitors have always made a huge contribution to supporting pre-school children and their families and are the best-placed professional to help give all children the best start in life during the early years of life.”

Download Maternal Mental Health – Women’s Voices survey report

Read full press release from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists

More Multi-agency Perinatal Mental Health Champions for London

London Perinatal Mental Health Network

We are thrilled to announce the continuation of our fantastic partnership working with the London Perinatal Mental Health Network.

Following on from our earlier pilot training programme for 22 champions during early 2015 in the London Boroughs of Barnet, Enfield and Haringey, this week sees the start of the roll-out of a further 68 Multi-agency Perinatal Mental Health Champions receiving training provided by the Institute of Health Visiting, with practitioners drawn from both maternity and multi-agency backgrounds.

Jo Maitland, London Perinatal Mental Health Network Coordinator, and her team have recruited over 40 new multi-agency participants and more than 20 participants from maternity backgrounds as Perinatal Champions for this new training commission.

Throughout October, we will be delivering three two-day training events of our newly-updated Multi-agency Perinatal Mental Health Champions training programme. The programme has been designed to equip champions to provide awareness training, cascading information in pairs to cohorts of multi-agency colleagues via a flexible onward-cascade of half and one day awareness training sessions as part of the network’s wider plan.

This will help ensure that all practitioners involved in the care of women during the perinatal period have the skills and knowledge to recognise, detect and support perinatal mental health problems, in recognition that multi-agency working is central to providing coordinated care during the perinatal period and is crucial to better outcomes for women and their families.

The London Perinatal Mental Health Network’s objective for their Champions mirrors the Institute of Health Visiting’s own aim in the development of the role, that Perinatal Mental Health Champions are:

ambassadors for perinatal mental health within their local area;
involved in developing integrated perinatal mental health care pathways;
act as a central resource to colleagues;
empower colleagues to raise parity of esteem for perinatal mental health;
and promote evidence-based practice at all levels.

The training has been funded by Health Education North Central East London (HENCEL), which covers 12 Boroughs.

For more information on our Perinatal Mental Health training programmes and options for bespoke training please contact: [email protected] or phone Philippa Bishop – iHV Training Programme Manager on: 07539 117775.

Institute of Health Visiting at the Frontiers in Perinatal Mental Health with the Marcé Society

The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) is attending and presenting at the International Marcé Society Biennial Scientific Meeting being held this week (26-28 September) in Melbourne, Australia, with the theme Frontiers in Perinatal Mental Health – looking to the future.

Dr Cheryll Adams CBE., Executive Director, iHV, said:

“The iHV is delighted to attend the International Marcé conference, where we can share best practice on our Perinatal Mental Health (PMH) Champions training and also learn about what works well in other countries. By 2016, a total of 577 PMH champions have been trained across England and they, in turn, have rolled out the training to in excess of 10,000 health visitors and others.”

Dr Adams continued:

“Whilst our iHV training was designed for health visitors, many other professions have benefitted during the roll out including midwives, general practitioners and mental health workers. As a result, the iHV has now designed and delivered multi-professional champions training and a range of direct delivery training. As encouraging as the reach, has been the many effects of the training on service transformation at a local, regional and national level.”

Melita Walker, Professional Development Officer/ Perinatal Mental Health Lead at the Institute of Health Visiting, is presenting her poster on the iHV’s Health Visitor Perinatal Mental Health Training – changing practice and systems together.

Melita Walker, Professional Development Officer/ Perinatal Mental Health Lead at the Institute of Health Visiting, presenting her poster at the International Marcé Society Biennial Scientific Meeting in Melbourne, Australia.

Read the full release

iHV welcomes innovative new mapping tool for perinatal mental health leaders

The Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) welcomes the innovative new mapping tool, launched online today by the National Lottery funded Mums and Babies in Mind project, to help professionals who are trying to transform perinatal mental health (PMH) services for mums with mental health problems during pregnancy or the first year after birth.

Using this unique mapping tool, professionals will be able to rate their local services against national standards to identify strengths and gaps where more work is needed. The tool has seven themed areas, which set out key standards for the different services and processes that should ideally exist in each local area. It also pulls out cross cutting themes, like support for new dads.

Dr Cheryll Adams, Executive Director iHV, said:

“The Institute of Health Visiting, a member of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, is delighted to support the launch of this new mapping tool which will help local PMH leaders, many of whom are health visitors, to identify any concerns in their local PMH support systems and what they need to do to address them to ensure that every mum and her family get the support that they need.”

Dr Adams continued:

“We, at the iHV, are also extremely pleased that the new tool includes recommendations for iHV Champions and Specialist Health Visitors in every service, as well as mandatory training in PMH and IMH (infant mental health). This strengthens the work that the iHV has done and continues to deliver in PMH and IMH training and ensuring standards for health visitor professionals and the families they work with.”

Download and use the mapping tool: www.maternalmentalhealthalliance.org/mumsandbabiesinmind/mabim-tools

Explore new Mums and Babies in Mind online hub: www.maternalmentalhealthalliance.org/mumsandbabiesinmind

Read the full iHV press release

Read the Mums and Babies in Mind press release

New – Perinatal Mental Health Toolkit launched

A ‘one-stop’ hub of resources to support GPs to deliver the best possible care to patients with perinatal mental health conditions has been launched by the Royal College of GPs (RCGP).

This toolkit is a set of relevant tools to assist members of the primary care team to deliver the highest quality care to women with mental health problems in the perinatal period. As well as offering a diverse collection of resources, the Perinatal Mental Health Toolkit gives details of additional learning for individual practitioners.

RCGP has launched the free-access perinatal mental health toolkit for family doctors and other healthcare professionals, as a go-to collation of resources that could support them to deliver the care their patients with perinatal mental health need.

There is a variety of resources to offer patients from information leaflets, links to supporting charities and social media peer support groups amongst many others. Health professionals may face additional challenges in seeking help for perinatal mental health problems and there a specific section of the Toolkit to address this need.

This resource is a tool developed by the RCGP designed to make the NICE guidelines on antenatal and postnatal mental health more accessible and focused for GPs. It is presented in the form of ten questions to help GPs identify the crucial, but often hidden, signs of perinatal mental health issues in their patients as early as possible to enable them to discuss support and treatment with the woman.

The tool is based on and designed to be used alongside NICE guidelines, and has been approved by NICE. It also aims to reduce variation in the care of women with perinatal mental health problems, many of whom face a ‘postcode lottery’ in trying to access specialist referral and follow-up services.

RCGP Perinatal Mental Health Toolkit

iHV welcomes new NHSE clinical directors for perinatal mental health

Dr Jo Black and Dr Giles Berrisford have been appointed as the new Associate National Directors for Perinatal Mental Health for NHS England.

Dr Jo Black is Associate National Clinical Director for Perinatal Mental Health for NHS England

Dr Jo Black is a consultant perinatal psychiatrist with Devon Partnership NHS Trust, SW regional representative on the perinatal faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Chair of the Regional Reps Committee. She has developed an integrated community perinatal mental health service, with perinatal expertise embedded in the three maternity units serving families in Devon.

Jo has experience of working with teams, bringing together clinical, management and commissioning colleagues from primary care, acute and mental health services, women, families and colleagues from the third sector. She looks forward to bringing her energy, experience and ideas to this national role.

Dr Giles Berrisford is Associate National Clinical Director for Perinatal Mental Health for NHS England

Dr Giles Berrisford is the Clinical Lead at the Birmingham Perinatal Mental Health Service at BSMHFT – leading one of the largest inpatient Mother and Baby Units in the country. He is the Chair of the national charity Action on Postpartum Psychosis (APP) – working closely with women and families directly affected by postpartum psychosis – the most severe form of perinatal mental illness. He is the Vice-Chair Elect of the Perinatal Psychiatry Faculty within the Royal College of Psychiatrists and is the West Midlands’ Senate representative for the Perinatal Psychiatry Clinical Reference Group. He is committed to bringing about improved access to maternal mental health services and reducing the unwarranted variation in care currently seen across the country.