Professional insights and endorsements

Hear from Caroline, our Parent Education Midwife, as she introduces the Ready to Relate resource and gives you a personal perspective on why it’s so valuable for practitioners to use at their appointments with parents.

Hear more from our practitioners

We’ve been asking different practitioners like you, to share their thoughts about the Ready to Relate resource. Hear different bits of advice and useful tips from these professionals.

Midwife

Non-urgent advice: Gina Melia and Caroline Lamb

Listen to Gina, a parent education midwife, who uses the Ready to Relate resource nearly every day. She explains how valuable it is for parents to understand how rapidly their baby’s brain is growing and how important it is to bond with their baby. Gina discusses some of the sections in the parent toolkit that she finds most useful. Caroline discusses the use of the guidance about mutual gaze and some practical tips around the use of the mind-mindedness section. She also explains the importance of the soothing a crying baby advice.

Social Worker

Non-urgent advice: Jo Jones

Listen to Jo, a social worker in a specialist perinatal mental health community team share how she uses the cards with families. In particular, the brain synapses card to help parents recognise how much infants are learning and their extraordinary neurodevelopment. This can help parents appreciate how interesting infants are and help parents recognise how valuable they are when they spend time with their baby doing normal every day things.

Community Psychiatric Nurse

Non-urgent advice: Joanne Exley

Listen to Joanne, a community psychiatric nurse in a specialist perinatal mental health community team describe how she uses the cards, helping parents understand their infant’s cues and by doing so understand more of the internal world of their infant. Joanne helps us remember how rewarding it can be to share information with families that helps them understand their little ones better.

Infant Feeding Practitioner

Non-urgent advice: Shabana Ditta

Listen to Shabana, an infant feeding practitioner who works for the Community Infant Feeding Team, sharing how she uses the cards and the digital companion. Shabana finds the translation tool really enables inclusivity, so all families to benefit from Ready to Relate. Shabana really supports pointing out the positive moments she notices, especially with new parents who can be anxious getting to know their baby, and she finds the the Too much section really useful for supporting understanding and responding to baby’s cues.

Psychological Therapist

Non-urgent advice: Rachael Dewhurst

Listen to Rachael, a psychological therapist in a specialist perinatal mental health community team shares how integrates Ready to Relate into her interventions. She knows the cards well, so can spontaneously wind the cards into a conversations so that families have the information they need. She uses the Not naughty cards so that parents understand their infant behaviours more accurately. Rachael points out how all the information in the cards can be helpful for families and helpful for practitioners to have too!

Staff Nurse

Non-urgent advice: Debra Fox

Listen to Debra, a staff nurse in a 0-19 service. She uses the cards at all her visits and shares the digital resource so that families can learn more, for example about communication, mutual gaze or skin to skin. Debra uses the resources in a personalise way, which we know is most effective. Moreover, Debra picks up on positive moments and uses the cards to affirm the parents. Learning theory suggests that when someone recognises something we are doing well, we will do it more. From these positive conversations, Debra then shares more information. She points out how these simple interventions can benefit parent, infant, the relationship and future outcomes.

Health Visitor

Non-urgent advice: Claire Walton

Listen to Claire, a Health Visitor. Claire uses the the Ready to Relate cards at all core contacts and finds the digital resource really helpful as it has so much information, activities and videos for families to engage with. Claire uses the HPA access information to help parents understand their own stress and their infants. She connects this to information about skin to skin and how good this is for infants (and us!). Claire reminds us of how the Ready to Relate interventions are supporting attachment, and that our early experiences can influence our future.