The Parent-Infant Project (PIP)

The aim of the Parent-Infant Project is to promote the wellbeing of babies and their families.

This is done both here at the Anna Freud Centre and elsewhere, and through a range of schemes, including clinical services, training courses for professionals, and research projects.

The Parent-Infant Project, in its entirety, comprises the following elements:

Clinical Services

The Parent Infant Project at the Anna Freud Centre offers specialist and easily accessible help to families who might be struggling to find their feet in their relationship with their infant(s) aged 0-12 months.

If you feel that this service might be of interest to you, please read more by downloading our PIP flyer here.

How do we help? We help by working with parents and their babies to help them understand their relationships. We talk together about strengths and concerns, and reflect on what the baby is trying to communicate and how the parents want to respond.

Parents are seen in one-to-one sessions with their baby or within a mother-baby group (these are known as parent-infant psychotherapy sessions).

We also have counselling sessions as part of our research programme. We are able to work with women in the late stages of pregnancy, and with very young babies and their families - to bring about change as quickly as possible in this critical period of the infant's neuropsychological development.

Our work has been evaluated and proven effective in helping children to develop in more healthy and less problematic ways.

The Parent-Infant Project also has outreach programmes in the community, working with Sure Start, homeless families and mothers and babies in prison.