“Their model of being trauma-informed is one that I’d like us to get across the whole of our service”
Stakeholder
Influencing and informing policy and practice
We amplify our impact by sharing our innovative learning and working with others to influence practices, policies and systems.
Making the case for change
Through our briefings and proposals, and by joining our voice with others, we advocate for babies and parents receiving the support they need, when they need it, to break cycles of domestic abuse and childhood trauma and to build lasting resilience. This agenda connects with many strands of public policy and we seek to help bring these strands together.
Our advocacy includes:
- Briefing the House of Lords on the case for amending the Domestic Abuse Bill to meet the needs of babies, including unborn babies, and their parents. The brief video opposite is an extract from Baroness Armstrong’s speech, supporting amendments tabled by Baroness Stroud. You can also download our briefing paper and listen to the full debate on the amendments.
- Submitting evidence to the cross-party Early Years Commission chaired by Sharon Hodgson MP and Edward Timpson MP.
- Membership of the First 1001 Days Movement, promoting the emotional wellbeing of babies.
- Signing the Call to Action, advocating for the creation of a national domestic abuse perpetrator strategy.
Tools & resources that can support you
We share tools and resources which may be useful to parents or professionals. Some of these are used within our own programme, For Baby’s Sake, or we’ve created them based on our experience of working with parents. We also suggest resources or support from other organisations.
Pressure Pot
Animated tool to help with understanding and managing anger
Mindfulness
Two voice-guided tools, with audio and video, for experiencing mindfulness
Relaxation
Two voice-guided tools with audio and video to help with relaxation
Pressure Pot
A drawing to help with understanding and managing anger
Self-esteem
A drawing to help understand your self esteem and how to build it up
National helplines
Want to talk to someone? Here are numbers for some national helplines
Growing up with adversity
A tool for practitioners to help them support parents who grew up with adversity to break the cycle
Traumatised children
How practitioners can take a strengths-based approach to support children’s recovery
Parents with unresolved trauma
How practitioners can take a strengths-based approach to support parents’ recovery
Serve and Return video
A video from Harvard Centre on the Developing Child, showing ‘two-way’ parent-child communication
Serve and Return 5-step guide
A 5-step guide to using serve and return to build your baby’s brain
Parental Relationships Spectrum
Helping professionals (and parents) to distinguish between healthy, conflictual and abusive relationships
How Racism Can Affect Child Development
A note from Harvard Centre on the Developing Child explaining how racial prejudice can affect child development and why we need to tackle it.
What We Can Do About Toxic Stress
A note from Harvard Centre on the Developing Child about toxic stress and how to move from surviving to coping to resilience
COVID-19 guidance
Guidance on trauma & resilience provides context around risks of Covid-19 measures to mental and emotional health and offers advice on supporting vulnerable families.
Overcoming barriers to seeking help if you’re experiencing abuse
Overcoming barriers to seeking help if you’re using abusive behaviours
For Professionals - overcoming barriers to enquiring about domestic abuse
Understanding what might be getting in the way might help you reach in and start more conversations
Brain Story
The science of brain development – link to University of Oxford website with information for parents and professionals (including course for professionals)
Domestic abuse and baby's first 1001 days
Evidence on the scale and impact of domestic abuse and the need that our programme is helping to meet
Supporting both parents, starting in pregnancy
Infographic with key lessons from the evaluation of For Baby’s Sake
Building the evidence base
We contribute to the growing evidence on issues that are fundamental to the wellbeing of individuals, families and society. We focus on infant development from conception to age two, domestic abuse, the impact of childhood adversity and the hopeful science of how those who have suffered trauma can build their resilience.
The major academic evaluation of For Baby’s Sake covers all these themes – see below for this report. Additional published papers drawing out findings from our work include:
- Intervention Development and Evaluation Design of a Whole-Family Perinatal Intervention to Break the Cycle of Domestic Abuse – Journal of Family Violence
- Breaking the cycle of intergenerational abuse: A qualitative interview study of men participating in a perinatal program to reduce violence – Journal of Infant Mental Health
- For Baby’s Sake: breaking the cycle of intergenerational abuse – International Journal of Birth and Parent Education, Vol 8 Issue 2, January 2021
Academic evaluation of
For Baby’s Sake
We commissioned a major four-year independent evaluation of For Baby’s Sake and published the final report in May 2020.
The evaluation, led by King’s College London, identified the programme as the “first” to “fill an important gap in provision” through its “unique approach” to tackling domestic abuse.
The report found that For Baby’s Sake “addresses key limitations” of existing whole family domestic abuse interventions by working with both parents, starting in pregnancy and through its trauma-informed and attachment-focused model.
King’s College London led a team of academics from University of Warwick, University of Central Lancashire, University of Cambridge and McMaster University, Canada in the evaluation of the feasibility, acceptability and impact of For Baby’s Sake in the first two prototype sites in Hertfordshire and London.