Webinar - Bringing Fathers into Focus: Mental Health in the Perinatal and Early Years
This webinar explores how midwives, health visitors and other professionals can ensure fathers feel seen and included in the early years journey.
Background to the webinar
With 1 in 10 men experiencing mental health difficulties around the time of birth, professionals have a vital role in recognising concerns and offering timely support. Supporting fathers’ mental health is a crucial but often overlooked part of early years work. This webinar will provide professionals with a robust evidence base and a deeper understanding of the challenges faced by new fathers, highlighting how these can impact babies, children, and families.
Drawing on pioneering research led by Dr Sharin Baldwin from the Institute of Health Visiting, the session will explore the hidden signs of distress, the factors that influence paternal mental health, and the opportunities for early intervention within existing early years services.
The event will feature a screening of Invisible, a 20-minute film informed by interviews with fathers from diverse backgrounds and grounded in research findings. A live panel discussion will connect the film’s themes to evidence-based approaches, including Anna Freud’s mentalization-based and parenting interventions. Participants will gain research-informed knowledge, practical considerations to reflect on and integrate into their current work, and signposting to relevant resources that can strengthen practice and enhance support for fathers and their families.
Aims of the webinar
To share current research evidence on paternal mental health and its impact on babies, children, partners, and family wellbeing, with a focus on implications for early years services.
To increase professional knowledge and awareness of the hidden signs of distress in new fathers, and the factors that influence their mental health during the perinatal period.
To encourage reflection on current practice and explore how research findings and evidence-based approaches, including mentalization-based interventions, can be incorporated into early years work.
To signpost professionals to resources and networks that can strengthen engagement with fathers and enhance the support available to families.
Reflections after the webinar
The webinar highlighted how the emotional needs of fathers are often unintentionally overlooked within early years and perinatal pathways. Dr Baldwin’s research helped illuminate the subtle signs of distress that professionals may encounter, while emphasising the importance of early, sensitive intervention.
A central moment in the session was the screening of Invisible, a short film created from interviews with fathers from a range of backgrounds. The film showed how fathers’ emotional experiences can be missed due to time pressures in appointments, competing clinical priorities, and a natural focus on mothers and babies. It underscored the value of maintaining a whole-family lens across all early years practice. To find out more about the film, please visit the Institute of Health Visiting website.
The panel discussion that followed, featuring professionals and people with lived experience, expanded on the film’s themes and connected them to evidence-based approaches, including Anna Freud’s mentalization-based and parenting interventions.
If any of the themes raised in the webinar or film feel difficult or triggering, support is available. Please our urgent help page or access the AFC Crisis Messenger.
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5 minutes – Welcome and introduction
10 minutes – Sharing key points from research (Dr Sharin Baldwin, Institute of Health Visiting)
30 minutes – Film screening (Invisible – 22 minutes, with buffer for technical setup and transitions)
45 minutes – Panel discussion
15 minutes – Q&A (if webinar platform allows; if not, this time will be reallocated to the panel discussion)
5 minutes – Closing remarks
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Dr Dickon Bevington, Consultant, Anna Freud
Dr Dickon Bevington is a Consultant in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and has worked for 30+ years in the NHS, where he leads a team for young people with substance use and multiple other needs, and is Mental Health Lead for the planned new Cambridge Children’s Hospital on the Addenbrookes site. He has been Medical Director and Designated Safeguarding Lead at Anna Freud for 20 years. He co-founded AMBIT, and he now works as a consultant to the AMBIT Programme at Anna Freud.
Nana Owusu, Head of Clinical Services, Anna Freud
Nana provides operational and clinical leadership within the Clinical division at Anna Freud and contributes strategic leadership across programmes supporting children, young people, and families. She is a registered mental health nurse and therapist with over two decades of experience across the NHS, voluntary sector, and international settings, including work linked to gaming within the e-sports space.
Her work centres on prevention and community-based approaches to mental health, with a particular focus on the early years, crisis prevention, and parenting. She has led pioneering service models, including youth crisis cafés and parenting support programmes. Her practice focuses on strengthening parents’ capacity to understand children’s needs, develop effective strategies, and build supportive environments that enable children to thrive and develop resilience. She also brings expertise in addressing the impact of deprivation on children’s mental health and ensuring access to high-quality, culturally responsive support for marginalised and underserved communities.
Chris Godwin Biog
Chris is the Founder and Creative Director of Inner Eye Productions, which specialises in using the power of empathy in film drama to engage professionals and communities to bring about change. His films are proven to make a difference, are multi-award winning and have been archived by the British Film Institute in recognition of their historical significance.
Pathways reflected in his films have ranged from post-natal depression through to still birth through to the child’s perspective of domestic abuse. His most well know film – Barbara’s Story – was credited by the Health Secretary for changing attitudes on dementia across the NHS. In 2016, he produced a film on child sexual abuse for the Department of Health, which has had 3.5 million views on YouTube and has led to an increase in disclosures of abuse. Prior to working in this genre of film making, he worked in advertising and at the BBC, where he made films on subjects ranging from the reunion of families in war torn Angola through to an investigation into fake model agencies for the BAFTA nominated series of Short-Change.
Sharin Baldwin PhD, MSc, PG Dip, BSc (Hons), HV, RM, RN, QN, FiHV
Senior Health Visitor Research Lead, Institute of Health Visiting Adjunct Research Fellow, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Western Sydney University.
Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Centre for Health Services Studies, University of Kent, Sharin is a trained nurse, midwife, health visitor with over 28 years of experience working in the NHS. Sharin qualified as a health visitor in 2002 and has experience working in a range of leadership, professional development and clinical academic roles throughout her career. Sharin served as a Trustee of the IHV between October 2021 - April 2023.
Sharin completed her PhD at King’s College London in September 2020 as part of an NIHR Clinical Doctoral Fellowship and was the first health visitor in the UK to be awarded this fellowship. As part of her PhD, Sharin has led and successfully completed the New Dad Study (NEST), resulting in numerous publications and national/international recognition. Sharin has experience in securing research grants, fellowships and awards. Following her PhD, Sharin completed a year in Warwick Clinical Trials Unit (part-time) after being awarded the NIHR Development and Skills Enhancement Award. Sharin currently holds an honorary Research Fellow position at the University of Kent and Western Sydney University.
Working as a Senior Health Visitor Research Lead at the Institute of Health Visiting, Sharin is passionate about increasing research capability and capacity within health visiting. Sharin’s research interests are fathers’ mental health, perinatal and infant mental health, working with underserved communities, and workforce wellbeing. Sharin has co-authored book chapters in health visiting textbooks and has a good track record of publications in national and international peer-reviewed journals.
She is an editorial board member for the Journal of Family and Child Health, and peer reviewer for numerous professional bodies and journals, including NIHR, iHV, British Journal of Nursing, British Journal of Midwifery, BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, BMC Psychiatry, BMJ Open, International Journal of Nursing Studies, Mental Health Practice, PLOS One, Primary Health Care Research and Development, and Journal of Midwifery. See a full list of Sharin publications.
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A week before the event you will be contacted by the Training, Conferences and Events team with the Zoom link. On the day, please ensure that you access this link at least five minutes prior to the webinar for a prompt start.
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For this webinar we will have closed captions enabled and translated captions enabled.
Please let us know in advance if you require any further assistance from the team on training@annafreud.org.
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The online platform Zoom will be used to deliver this training. Prior to booking on, please ensure you meet the system requirements so you're able to join this training.
Before the training, please test your equipment is working by going to Zoom.us/test and follow the instructions.
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