Perinatal mental health training key as Best Start Family Hubs expand across England
Perinatal mental health experts are urging services to prioritise specialist training for their workforce, as local authorities prepare to roll out the government’s Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies programme/.
This is in line with the government’s strategy, which highlights the importance of improving workforce capability through training.
Jo Brook, Perinatal Mental Health Service Development and Training Lead within the Tavistock and Portman’s Education and Training Centre, said:
“It’s imperative that practitioners receive the right training so they can provide the right care for families and communities. Workforce training is explicitly included in the government funding criteria, with expectations for Best Start Family Hubs to provide on-site support for perinatal mental health. The funding should ‘be used to improve workforce capability through training [and] increase workforce capacity through recruitment and training and by ensuring appropriate supervision is in place.”
The government’s £1.5 billion investment in Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies Services comes as the UK faces significant challenges around perinatal mental health, including ongoing inequalities and disparities in care provided, particularly to women from ethnic minority groups.
One in four women in the UK develop mental health problems during pregnancy or in the early years after having a baby.
Hundreds of practitioners from diverse backgrounds have completed our Continuing Professional Development, postgraduate and bespoke courses, with online courses seeing a surge in uptake in recent years.
Bespoke courses have also been growing in popularity as local authorities, charities, NHS Trusts and service providers commissioned to provide universal and specialist perinatal mental health services, rightly prioritise workforce training and development within this area.
“Engagement in this course has strengthened staff knowledge, confidence and clinical decision-making,” said Eloïse Schonberger, a Health Visiting Service Lead, whose staff at Camden’s Integrated Early Years Service attended our perinatal mental health, risk, care and treatment course.
“The training enhanced practitioners’ ability to identify and respond to perinatal mental health risks, apply evidence-based care and treatment approaches, and work more effectively with families and partner services. Staff report increased confidence in managing complexity, leading to safer, more responsive, and compassionate care for parents and infants,” said Eloïse.
‘The training was vital’
Participant feedback has been consistently positive, reflecting the Tavistock and Portman’s long-standing role and national reputation in perinatal mental health training.
“Since 2017 we have trained hundreds of practitioners from a range of backgrounds to ensure that practitioners are trained and confident in identifying, understanding and responding to perinatal mental health needs,” said Jo.
“In the last 18 months we have been doing some work with two Start for Life areas to support the upskilling of their workforce in perinatal mental health and have developed a training model that we are keen to share with other areas who are part of the Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Babies programme to assist with their workforce planning needs,” she said.
Our range of expert perinatal mental health courses seek to ensure that professionals across the whole perinatal mental health care pathway have the skills, competencies and expertise needed to support women and birthing people experiencing mental illness during the perinatal period.
Dr Sara Roberts, Clinical Lead for Best Start for Baby Psychology, at Camden Council said their staff valued the learnings taken from our courses.
“Feedback [from our staff] has consistently highlighted its clinical depth, practical relevance and reflective rigour. Practitioners particularly valued the psychologically informed framing of perinatal mental health, the emphasis on relationships and parent–infant interaction and the protected space for reflective dialogue about complexity, risk and difference. The training has really supported colleagues to consider application to practice and has strengthened confidence in supporting those experiencing perinatal mental health difficulties. It has been a vital contributor to embedding psychologically minded, trauma-informed and equity-focused practice across Camden’s Family Hubs.”
The importance of appropriate workforce training is central to the government’s strategy to strengthen early years and family services, including perinatal mental health support to ensure families have access to the support they need to thrive and overcome challenges.
With the March deadline looming for local authorities to publish their spending plans, we are happy to support Best Start Family Hubs and Healthy Baby services with bespoke training, and advice on which of our range of perinatal courses would be best suited to help services improve outcomes for children, families and communities.
Training tailored to meet your needs
Our bespoke online training, which can be adapted to your workforce requirements and availability, can be commissioned to support:
- Consultations to help identify training needs and knowledge gaps
- Perinatal mental health, risk, care and treatment training at beginner, intermediate and advanced (postgraduate) levels
- Live reflective sessions, as well as training on how to facilitate these in your own organisation
- Infant observation and interventions.
To find out more about our training, visit our family hubs training area or contact us.