It’s Infant Mental Health Awareness Week 2021

© Daniel Thomas

The theme for Infant Mental Health Awareness Week 2021 is including infants in 

children and young people’s mental health.

The Parent-Infant Foundation says “The goal of this year’s IMHAW theme is to encourage everyone working in children and young people’s mental health policies, strategies and services to think about and include babies. Children and young people’s mental health should refer to the mental health of all children from 0-18 and beyond, but too often it is focussed on older children.

There is a “baby blindspot”. We are encouraging everyone to think and talk about infant, children and young people’s mental health, and to consider how babies’ mental health needs can be met.

We will be using the hashtags #IMHAW21 and #IncludingInfants

Early relationships influence a baby’s brain, and in particular their social and emotional development. This early development plays an important role in how well a child will go on to achieve many of the key outcomes that parents, the public, professionals and policy makers care about.

For example, babies who have had good early relationships start school best equipped to be able to make friends and learn. This increases the chances that they will achieve their potential in later life and contribute to society…..”

Here at Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations we decided to focus on sharing information about some of the key activities going on in Powys around improving infant mental health and wellbeing.

Lucy Taylor – Startwell Development Officer, PAVO

Lucy works closely with colleagues from the Health and Statutory sector under the Emotional Health and Wellbeing workstream in Powys to build a good start for all babies from pre conception onwards in the home and community up to support and health services for those who need them.

These goals sit under the Startwell element of the Powys Health & Care strategy.

You can contact Lucy by emailing lucy.taylor@pavo.org.uk or ringing 01597 822191.

© Kelly Sikkema

Jolene Duggan – Chair of the Powys Perinatal Mental Health Steering Group

“Healthy, social and emotional development during the first 1001 days lays the foundations for lifelong mental and physical health. At least 15% of children in the general population experience a disorganised attachment and this figure is higher for children facing adversity.” Parent Infant Foundation

Jolene says: “Attachment is the process, as well as the quality, of the relationship an infant forms with caregivers. Attachment can occur with biological and adoptive mothers, fathers, step-parents, grandparents and any other consistent caring person in the child’s life. A baby’s initial relationship experiences with primary caregivers creates the infrastructure for subsequent relationships, how the child views connection, how she experiences herself, and the world around her, is influenced by her early relationships. With repeated experiences of predictable care, the infant learns about trust and security. Growing up in an environment infused with safety and intentionality ensures healthy social and emotional development.

Here in Powys we are proactively trying to raise the awareness of the importance of Perinatal and Infant Mental Health by delivering the Institute of Health Visiting (IHV) Multi-Agency Champion training Programme. Prevention and early intervention are fundamental, and every professional working with families should be observing the interaction between a parent and infant.”

“It is easier to build strong children than repair broken men.” Frederick Douglass.

You can read more about the work of the Perinatal Mental Health Steering Group in our blog post: Perinatal Mental Health Services in Powys from 2019.

Mums Matter courses from Mind

Ros Sandhu is a Mums Matter Facilitator and Children & Young People Practitioner at Brecon & District Mind which offers the Mums Matter courses (as do Ystradgynlais Mind and Mid & North Powys Mind). Ros told us: “Infant mental health starts with maternal mental health, and as such it is mums who need support. In a recent article in The Guardian, Eliane Glaser put it succinctly when she wrote: “women are trying too hard and society isn’t trying hard enough.”

The Mums Matter Project aims to support mums who are at risk of, or suffering from, mild to moderate postnatal depression. Covid has left a larger number than ever of new mums feeling isolated and unsupported as they start their journey into motherhood, and in Brecon Mind we have been delivering the project using the online platform Zoom throughout the pandemic.

At the heart of the project is the idea that happy, contented, supported and confident mums produce mentally healthy, happy and secure infants and then children.

The insights of Donald Winnicott, a paediatrician and child psychoanalyst in the 1950s, provide a useful place to start the course and mums gain enormous comfort from his observations and teachings. His widely accepted theory is that mums need to learn to feel ok with being, “good enough” rather than striving for perfection. This takes the pressure off mums; none more so than mums living through a pandemic and surrounded by unrealistic images of motherhood on social media and little else! The concept of “good enough” can help to allow a greater sense of ease in their lives, which their babies will benefit from.

Winnicott also found that infants need to observe and experience the full array of human emotions within a warm, secure and loving environment. As such mums are reminded that’s its ok to be fully (at times even a bit messily) human so that their babies and children learn that it is ok to be the same.”

You can read more about the Mums Matter courses from Mind:

Mums Matter in a Changing World

Support for new mums in lockdown

Mental health and children, young people & families

By guest author Lucy Taylor

Hello, my name is Lucy Taylor and I am the Children, Young People and Families Officer for Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations (PAVO). 

My role is to support the organisations across Powys that work with children, young people and their families. This involves acting as a conduit between the organisations, for example Action for Children which works with families, and the statutory partners, for example Powys County Council which, in some cases, commissions part of their work. I use a blog, Facebook and network meetings to keep the sector up to date and informed. 

Another part of my work is to support the Play Networks and to raise the awareness of play. We ask: are there enough opportunities, time and space for our children to play in Powys? It was working with organisations looking at what services are available, and what support is needed for children and young people, that the gap or thinning of services that support them when they are having low level mental health worries was noted, hence this blog post.

Listening to young people speaking at the Mental Health Today conference in Cardiff in May this year I was struck by their common sense approach to some of their issues. They knew that life was not always going to be plain sailing - that events or relationships could knock them back. They wanted to be self-reliant, not turn to medical interventions or for the medical community to medicalise their problems. They recognised that in helping and supporting friends through their low patch in life, they may put their own mental wellbeing and stability at risk. Their request – “A toolkit for life, not a bucket of sand to hide from it.”

Mental Health Today conference presentation

This is the issue and where some gaps in support appear. Everyone can experience a wobble in their wellbeing. But, with a few self-help tools, some supportive friends and community, the knowledge of where to go for help early on, we may all take a role in our and our community’s wellbeing, leaving the expertise of medical interventions to those whose condition requires it.

The Young Adult Peer Support Project (YAPS) which was run by Ponthafren Association as part of the One Powys Connecting Voices lottery-funded programme was really excellent. When it wound down recently as the funding came to an end none of the young people (age 16 – 25) involved with the project was happy to see it go. Peer support projects like these are extremely valuable, as the first port of call for a young person struggling with their emotional wellbeing is friends and family.

The Making Sense Report was produced in January 2016 as a response to the Together for Children and Young People programme. It had emerged that referrals to Children & Adolescent Mental Health Services across Wales had increased by over 100% between 2010 – 2014, and four organisations – Hafal, Mental Health Foundation, Bipolar UK and Diverse Cymru – joined together to find out why and consider what could be done to address the situation. Young people themselves, who had been in contact with CAMHS teams in Wales, reported on their health and wellbeing and called for “non-mental health professionals such as education staff, counselling services and youth groups to share responsibility for the emotional needs and development of young people”.

For children, young people and their families to have access to informal and non-medical support, we – the families and communities – need to be able to recognise when we, and our neighbours, need a bit of help. It is also crucial that we know how to source help in our particular locality. Information and connectivity is the key. The PAVO Community Connectors help people in Powys (aged 50+) and their families or carers, to access community-level services and activities, (tel: 01597 828 649) – and Powys People Direct “one number for children, adults and families for information and support services” (tel: 01597 827 666) can also help.

The third sector as a whole plays a huge role in providing services and opportunities for children and families in Powys. From the playgroups and play networks, guides, cadets and St John groups to sports clubs and arts organisations. Then there are the agencies offering more targeted support or drop ins. Think of Action for Children, Mid Powys and Brecon Mind or Ponthafren Association.

Powys Youth Service supports young people around their emotional wellbeing in youth clubs or at school. The service has recently noticed that where it used to work with pupils around exam stress, now stress is more general and anxiety about life and the future prevalent. Online counselling and advice is available via an organisation called Kooth (Xenzone) .

But what of families, education and skilling our young people for life? If “it takes a village to raise a child”, what part do we all play in ensuring the wellbeing of all the children? Can Google or YouTube really teach you everything? The ability to budget, know about nutrition, healthy eating and exercise, or how to cook from scratch? These are the life skills the young people want, alongside how to protect their mental wellbeing, perhaps using such techniques as yoga, meditation or mindfulness.

Would it surprise you to know that a walk in the park or taking time to walk and be around trees can also help? The Japanese call it “Tree Bathing” and have invested in public awareness of the benefits of being outdoors. 

PAVO staff are working with organisations from the mental health and children’s arenas, alongside green or outdoor providers, to look at how best we can work together and bolster our communities and families by making the most of the green resource we have on our doorstep. We will be meeting in the coming months to discuss the support we can all offer. For more information call 01597 822191 and speak to Lucy Taylor or Jane Cooke.

Why not take five minutes out from your busy day to walk in the fresh air, appreciate the sights and sounds of nature? Perhaps grab some friends and all walk together. Take the children to the park or share a picnic with other friends and families. It may not solve any problems but it can help soothe your mind and give you a place to start. Like eating elephants you can take life one bite at a time.

There is currently a Welsh Government consultation on: The Emotional and Mental Health of Children and Young People. If you, or someone you care for, has been in contact with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, then you can give feedback up until 29 September 2017.

The Children, Young People and Education Committee’s Inquiry will consider whether the ‘Together for Children and Young People Programme’ is on track to deliver the ‘step-change’ in CAMHS services that is needed. It will also consider how effective the programme has been in promoting the resilience of children and young people, including a focus on the role of education in preventing mental health problems. The Together for Children and Young People (T4CYP) programme is a multi-agency service improvement programme that is aiming to reshape, remodel and refocus the emotional and mental health services provided for children and young people in Wales.