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The Collaborating in Pregnancy and Early Years (COPE) Project

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News – 01 September 2017

Uncategorized.

Hello and welcome to the September update!

It has been a very busy month for us. First off, data collection for the focus group study with recent mothers has recently been completed, and data analysis is well underway. We will report more on this in due course. Second, we were delighted to have been participants in this year’s #HVWeek, where we wrote a little blog post on the role of electronic communication in facilitating collaborative working between midwives and health visitors. A summary of #HVweek is on Storify (Credit to Julie Cooper of the IHV for the link).

This September we are busy with conferences, with Ryc presenting at the Division of Health Psychology conference, Ellinor at the Society for Reproductive and Infant Psychology conference, and Ros at the International Collaboration for Community Health Nursing! Looking forward to telling you all about these events in next month’s update.

Until then,
-Team COPE

 

News – 01 August 2017

Uncategorized.

Hello and welcome to the August update!

We hope you are all enjoying the summer holidays.

We are delighted to let you know that the abstracts we submitted to the Society for Reproductive and Infant Psychology (SRIP) have both been accepted as poster presentations. Ellinor will be presenting these in the SRIP conference this September in York. To add to this, the focus group study we reported on in our last blog is well underway. Ryc is recruiting participants (women who have had a child in the UK in the last 18 months) to take part in a study exploring your views and experiences of care as delivered collaboratively by midwives and health visitors. The next session will be held on the 9th of August, at Comet Nursery and Children’s Centre (details below).

Finally, the team are busy getting the word out on the studies concerning COPE. Just a few weeks ago, Ellinor presented the findings of the women’s views study at Positive Birth Conference (https://www.city.ac.uk/events/2017/july/positive-birth-conference-2017). You can browse through all the tweets here.

As ever, we would love to hear from you! Let us know what you think of our blog post, or ask us any questions regarding the COPE project via cope@city.ac.uk.

Until then,
– Team COPE

News – 01 July 2017

Uncategorized.

Hello and welcome to the July update!

COPE event

On Wednesday 21st of June, 2017, we held an event to present and discuss our research findings to date.  In addition to the COPE team (see photo), we had local healthcare professionals and service users attending as well as representatives from the National Childbirth Trust, Royal College of Midwives, Institute of Health Visiting and Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association. We were very excited to see so many interested individuals attending which lead to great debates on collaboration between healthcare professionals.

[L-R] Ros Bryar, Ryc Aquino, Judy Brook, Suzanne Lee, Rose Coates, Erica Harris, Ellinor Olander, Farzana Khanom, Sultana Uddin

After presenting some of our recent research findings we asked the attendees to identify factors that facilitate collaboration between healthcare professionals during and after pregnancy. Table 1 illustrates some of the factors identified. The factors identified to prevent collaboration between healthcare professionals during and after pregnancy are summarised in table 2. Subsequently, we asked the group to vote for the most important enablers and barriers. As can be seen, the group identified computer systems and organisational structure to be key components in collaboration – they could both facilitate and hinder collaboration. Other factors identified were how face-to-face meetings can help collaboration and how the current system where services is provided by different organisations prevents collaboration.

Enablers Votes
Structure that encourages collaboration 14
Shared computer systems 14
Face-to-face meetings 12
Co-design/production of services 7
Joint strategic leadership 4
Use evidence from Healthy Child Programme and Better Births 4
Less duplication of work 2
Motivation and enthusiasm 2
Funding 1
Local working/caseloads (close geographical proximity) 0
TOTAL 62

Table 1. Factors identified to enable collaboration between healthcare professionals

Barriers Votes
Work structures/lack of capacity 16
IT systems are different between services 12
Different service providers/fragmented commissioning 10
Information governance/lack of protocol 7
Need to meet targets/KPIs 7
Poor engagement with service users (little feedback from women) 6
No time 2
TOTAL 60

Table 2. Factors identified to prevent collaboration between healthcare professionals.

Finally, the attendees were asked to make suggestions for future research projects and we received lots of good comments.  These are now being discussed within the COPE team, and we will report on them in a future news item. The event evaluated well by the attendees, stating it was good or excellent in our satisfaction survey.

News – 01 June 2017

Uncategorized.

Hello and welcome to the COPE Project’s June update and blog. We are eagerly embracing the beginning of the Great British Summer!

Photo by Nathan Anderson

Since our last blog/update, we have been busy on finding ways to share our research findings, as well as developing new studies. Additionally, we look back on Mental Health Awareness Week, which took place last May.


Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week (May 1-7, 2017)

In the first week of May, the spotlight was focussed on Maternal Mental Health. In the UK, there were various activities both online and offline, which involved sharing strategies to protect mums’ and families’ mental health, and information on available services. National Maternal Mental Health Coalition’s (USA) 2017 campaign was #ConnectTheDots, which invites groups, individuals, communities and organisations to help in raising awareness for perinatal mental health. To express our support, below we share various resources with our community:

  • Find out your good mental health score through this survey
  • Download the pregnancy and post-birth wellbeing plan here
  • A hints and tips article from Metro on how to help a partner with mental health illness

Mental Health Awareness Week (May 8-14, 2017)
Following Maternal Mental Health Awareness week was Mental Health Awareness week, which also featured perinatal mental health. For example, ITV featured The Smile Group and its work on supporting families affected by perinatal illness, which you can watch here. The BBC’s Mind Over Marathon showed us the various ways that mental health issues can affect everyone, regardless of their background.

On the whole, these two weeks focussing on mental health were very important in reducing the stigma and getting the conversation going about mental health. With over 4 in 10 people reporting to experience depression (Mental Health Foundation, 2017), actions to improve mental health and build resilience in society are key.

*Views expressed in this blog post are solely of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views, position, or policies of the University.


Cope News/Notices

As mentioned in the May blog, Ryc will be presenting the findings from the interview study with midwives and health visitors in September at the British Psychological Society’s Division of Health Psychology Conference in Cardiff. We are grateful to our participants, as well as the School of Health Sciences for funding Ryc’s attendance at this conference. We have also submitted abstracts to other conferences, and we will let you know of the outcome of these in due course. Finally, we are awaiting ethical approval for a focus group study with women who have had a child in the last 18 months regarding their experiences of collaborative care as provided by midwives and health visitors. We will provide more information as soon as we are able.

As ever, we would love to hear from you! Let us know what you think of our blog post, or ask us any questions regarding the COPE project via cope@city.ac.uk.

Until then,
– Team COPE

News – 01 May 2017

Uncategorized.

Hello and welcome to the May blog and news update!

This month we’d like to reflect on impact of the decline in health visitor numbers in the last 12 months on women and families*.


Reduction in health visitor & school nurse numbers
The number of full-time equivalent health visitors and school nurses has been reduced, as reported in Children and Young People Now (full story here). This is concerning as this very shortly follows the health visitor implementation plan (a campaign to raise health visitor numbers by 50% or 2,400 health visitors) that was run between 2010-2015. Indeed, it has been reported that 70% of pregnant women do not receive the mandatory antenatal contacts from their health visitor. Following cuts to health visiting, there has been a reported rise in workload, which could put women, young people, and entire families at risk of losing out on invaluable support from their health visitor.

Health visitors’ response
Understandably, the threat of increasing cuts to the service has led to a response from health visitors, including the Institute of Health Visiting (Press release here), where the negative impact of cuts to services have been highlighted. This includes a reduction in health visitors’ ability to provide vital safeguarding support, as well as health visitors having to take on larger caseloads which can affect practitioner safety and performance. Other health visitors have taken to social media and news outlets to express their concerns regarding cuts to the service – we recommend reading the following articles:

Our response
We echo issues raised in these reports and (social) media posts, and acknowledge the role that health visitors play in preventing illness and promoting health. For example, health visitors provide immunisation support, providing parents with evidence-based advice in a non-judgemental way. They also play a role in child protection and safeguarding, and help vulnerable families access support to social/community services. Our research shows that health visitors are professionals committed to delivering a high-quality service, and have a wide set of skills to offer to mothers and their families, including breastfeeding, and mental health support. As mentioned, cuts to the service pose a risk to families’ health, and in light of this, local authorities should reconsider their proposed cuts for 2017.

*Views expressed in this blog post are solely of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the views, position, or policies of the University.


COPE News/Notices

We are thrilled to announce that our abstract has been accepted for an oral presentation at the British Psychological Society’s Division of Health Psychology Annual Conference. Ryc will be presenting the findings from the interview study with midwives and health visitors in September. Again we wish to express our thanks to all those who have participated in this study – we will of course update you in a future blog post on our findings.

In addition, we are busy writing journal papers and more conference abstracts, to start disseminating our study findings.  More information on all of this will follow in due course.

As ever, we would love to hear from you! Let us know what you think of our blog post, or ask us any questions regarding the COPE project via cope@city.ac.uk.

Until then,
– Team COPE

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City, University of London is an independent member institution of the University of London. Established by Royal Charter in 1836, the University of London consists of 18 independent member institutions with outstanding global reputations and several prestigious central academic bodies and activities.

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