A unique, supportive environment in which Mums are encouraged, empowered and inspired to bond with their babies and transform their life chances long term
Our Mother and Baby Unit provides a place to help families thrive through a combination of reassuring ad-hoc parenting support, targeted intervention work and high quality nursery provision.
Assessment
Mums are assessed when they arrive to determine their needs and then a plan of intervention is put in place to provide opportunities for Mums to change challenging areas in their lives. This can include basic baby care, budgeting, communication skills, issues of bereavement and loss, substance misuse and a wide range of other factors. This plan is coordinated with regard to courses available to them in the wider prison as part of the sentence planning process, and group work courses available from Action for Children on a weekly basis. These groups include The Incredible Years Baby and Toddler parenting courses, The Freedom Programme (addressing Domestic Abuse and relationships), Baby Massage and Barclays Money Skills (budgeting, banking and debt advice).
Early Years
Our Early Years setting is Ofsted registered and received 'Good' at its last inspection. This provides high quality, stimulating care for all the babies on the Unit and ensures their developmental needs are met and extended through regular outings to groups, leisure activities and play resources outside of the prison environment. Nursery staff are highly qualified and coordinate support plans with Parent Support keyworkers delivering interventions to ensure the outcomes for Mums and babies are the focus of the team.
Our Team
The team works closely with multi-agency professionals from the initial point of application to the Mother and Baby Unit, the provision of an ante-natal support group, the on-going support and care for the Mums and babies, to preparation for and release. This is done through regular review meetings held monthly in which a wide variety of professionals involved with the family, as well as fathers and other carers, attend to ensure the opportunities for attachment and transformative change are taken up whilst living on the Mother and Baby Unit. The different professional backgrounds of members of the team enable effective working relationships with a wide variety of professionals to ensure the baby's best interests are always put first.
For further information please contact us on 01924 803 000.
