Think Baby - Wandsworth

Introduction

Early help staff often lack specialist training to support early social and emotional development of infants through their caregiver relationships, despite delivering interventions in the community to this population.

To address this gap, we have developed and are testing in collaboration with Wandsworth Local authority an integrated early years pathway. This is being delivered across the three Wandsworth clusters (Battersea, Roehampton and Tooting). This pathway includes bespoke and specialist training and reflective practice of working with families in the early years and the delivery of a targeted therapeutic intervention consisting in psychoanalytically informed parent child play groups.

How it works

This pathway comprises 6 attachment-informed infant mental health training sessions and 12 monthly reflective practice group sessions to support early years staff in working with families in the early years.

The training sessions aim to support staff in developing skills in observing and facilitating parent-infant interactions, articulating the voice of the child, encouraging relationships among parents, recognizing and responding to parent-infant mental health issues, and communicating with colleagues about their work. This approach is based on the Parent-Infant Psychotherapy model.

The pathway also involves delivery of psychoanalytically informed parent-child play groups.

Who it is for

This pathway is aimed at play & stay workers, health visitors, social workers and early years workers across all three clusters in the borough of Wandsworth.

Evaluation

The evaluation uses mixed methods combining descriptive statistics, attendance figures, outcome measures and a thematic analysis of qualitative interviews with participants. It assesses two key outcomes, professional practice and family interventions.

Professional practice is being assessed using:

• Self-report measures (confidence, competence & knowledge) ​

• Focus group interviews​

• Coded video footage of practice

Family interventions are being assessed using:

• Self-report measures (parental mental health, parental confidence, infant development, experience) ​

Parent interviews

Meet the team

Dr Camilla Rosan (Head of Early Years Programme & Consultant Clinical Psychologist), Dr Sarah Peter (Senior Early Years Therapist) and Jessica James (Group Analyst and Consultant Parent Infant Psychotherapist).

Contact us

To find out more about Think Baby - Wandsworth, or how to make a referral, get in touch at EarlyYears@annafreud.org.