Enfield Parent Infant Partnership

We started as a really tiny service and we’ve remained that way – we’re small but we’ve been going for 8 years, we have a big reputation, and have had a real impact on parents and infants in Enfield.

Carole Levine, Parent Infant psychotherapist/Team Lead Enfield Parent Infant Partnership (EPIP), London Borough of Enfield

About the partnership

1. Enfield Parent Infant Partnership (EPIP) is a referral service for parents-to-be and parents with babies up to 18 months at referral.
2. The parent-infant partnership concept is being championed by the Parent-Infant Foundation (formerly PIP UK), who have built a case for investing in strong early relationships between infants and their parents.
3. EPIP is a small team of a specialist health visitor and parent infant psychotherapists.
4. EPIP works with parents and their babies where parents may be concerned about their relationship with their new babies. This may be due to adverse circumstances such as post-natal depression or anxiety, death of a previous infant or any other experience of trauma that may be impacting on their feelings and relationship with their babies.

What has gone well

1. EPIP uses a range of methods to support and enhance parents’ relationships with their infants. This mostly consists of talking therapy, though the team keep up with the latest developments and often apply new techniques.
2. The EPIP team consists of three colleagues working part-time – keeping the team small has kept the service focused on a clearly defined patient group.

Challenges experienced and overcome

1. Engaging with GPs and ensuring they are making the right referrals has been challenging, largely due to the number of practices that need to be engaged. The EPIP team have developed comms materials to address this.
2. More complex cases get referred to Perinatal Services and miss out on EPIP services. Effective communication between services is can address this.

Results

1. Enfield community services’ Parent-Infant Partnership team has seen its work lauded by the Association for Infant Mental Health, with Specialist health visitor Jane Davies winning the High Award for Specialist Health Visitor.
2. EPIP encourage all service users to complete a feedback form at the end of their work with the team. Feedback has been consistently positive in the 8 years the service has been operating.

What made the difference

1. Working across teams: EPIP organise a regular liaison group that includes partner services, CAMHS and Perinatal Services, which often work with the same patients as EPIP. The group discuss issues around patient care and treatment, how to improve collaborative working, and any new developments in any of the services.
2. Information sharing: EPIP uses the same Rio Electronic Patient Record (EPR) system as NCL services, which allows the liaison group to identify specific patients whose needs are not being met and agree more effective approaches.
3. Separate service: EPIP has benefited from sitting outside the highly-pressured CAMHS pathway. This has given the service space to develop specialised ways of working tailored to their patient group.
4. Support from Parent-Infant Foundation: The Parent-Infant Foundation supported the development of the service by providing expertise and learning gathered from other PIP services across the UK.