iHV supports Infant Mental Health Awareness Week #IMHAW2025

Today marks the start of Infant Mental Health Awareness Week (#IMHAW2025). Organisations and services working with families across the UK get a chance to celebrate the vital work they do to support babies’ earliest relationships with their parents and caregivers.

Alison Morton, Chief Executive of the Institute of Health Visiting, said:

“At the iHV, we know how important early relationships are in shaping a baby’s lifelong chances. And we know how important health visitors are in creating a safe psychological space for parents to explore the joys and uncertainties of new parenthood.

“That’s why we are excited to be leading a second phase of research, funded by The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, around health visitors’ use of the Alarm Distress Baby Scale (ADBB). The expansion of the ADBB, and its modified version, in a wider range of health visiting services will enable us to consider future sustainability of the model and help to direct the right support to the families who most need it.”

Health visitors are being trained in sites across all UK nations to better observe and interpret the ways that babies communicate through their facial expressions, eye contact, sounds and movements. By using the ADBB observation aid, health visitors can help parents discover the amazing social capacities of their babies, the ways babies show that they want to be in a relationship, and the subtle ways they indicate if something in their environment is causing them stress.

In this short film, created by The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood for #IMHAW2025, two of the health visitors participating in the study clearly articulate the importance of early relationships in establishing good mental health. It showcases the knowledge and skill of health visitors to support all families to lay the best foundations for their babies.

See the short film on The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood's Linked In account

See the short film on The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood's Instagram account

Hilda Beauchamp, Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Lead at the Institute of Health Visiting, said:

“I am so proud of the commitment of the health visitors involved in this study. They are achieving very high certification in ADBB, demonstrating robust knowledge and skill in their observation and understanding of babies’ communication and have been excited to use their enhanced skills to support families up and down the UK. This short film showcases the knowledge, skill and passion of health visitors in supporting all families to lay the best foundations for their babies. We know health visitors are amazing – and it’s great to be able to share a glimpse of the amazing work they do!”

The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood has shared a second short film as they caught up with some of the brilliant health visitors who are part of the second phase of the “ADBB” pilot as well as iHV’s Perinatal & Infant Mental Health Lead, Hilda Beauchamp – see video below This is a study of how a simple, yet powerful observation tool, can be used by professionals to spot early signs of emotional distress in babies through their eye contact, expressions, sounds, and activity.

Click here for more information about the ADBB study

Special thanks to the families, the health visiting services in Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust and West Street Family Hub, Scunthorpe who contributed to the film.

HRH The Princess of Wales hosts “Shaping Us” symposium

On 15 November 2023, Alison Morton iHV CEO will join The Shaping Us Symposium, hosted by Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales and The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, at The Design Museum in London. The event will bring together cross-disciplinary leaders, child and adult specialists, and global thinkers for the first time to consider how we grow, think, and behave throughout life, in order to build resilience for the future.

Earlier this year, Alison was interviewed as part of a “global listening exercise” conducted by The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood, involving experts from 21 countries around the world, to unite the thinking and agree on the key foundational skills that shape everything from our ability to form positive relationships, to our capacity for learning, working, and coping with adversity. They all have their foundations in early childhood.

This work has been undertaken to agree a set of common core skills that can apply equally to children and adults, so we can bring people together with a united language and vision to drive action at every level. The Shaping Us National Symposium will share the findings from this exercise and focus on the action needed to make social and emotional skills a greater priority.

The Symposium will begin with a keynote speech, delivered by The Princess of Wales. Mental health and wellbeing advocate, and Shaping Us Champion Fearne Cotton, will host the event. The day will also feature talks from a range of thought leaders to outline the scientific, economic and human cases for prioritising early childhood, and our social and emotional development, including:

Professor Jack Shonkoff, Director of the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard.
Sara Rajeswaran, Chief of Staff at Aviva, a key member of the Business Taskforce for Early Childhood which The Princess launched in March.
Professor Robert Waldinger, Director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development, one of the longest-running studies of adult life ever conducted.

During the afternoon, Symposium attendees will join a series of workshops to look at what action can be taken at every level to protect and strengthen these skills for current and future generations across disciplines and across sectors.

The event and the research that has been carried out by The Centre for Early Childhood is a key milestone for The Centre’s Shaping Us campaign, which aims to increase awareness of, and action on, the unique importance of early childhood in shaping our future mental and physical wellbeing as adults, as well as the nature of the wider society we build.

Alison Morton, iHV CEO said:

“It is a privilege and a pleasure to support the work of HRH The Princess of Wales which is galvanising a global movement focused on the importance of the earliest years of life. The sharp focus and vision of The Centre for Early Childhood aligns closely with ours at the Institute – by laying strong foundations for social and emotional wellbeing in early childhood, we are making the smartest of all investments in the health and happiness of a rising generation of children”.

Use #ShapingUs to follow and support the campaign on social media.

Click here for more information about The Shaping Us campaign and latest news from The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood