Action for Children have contracts with the Ministry of Justice to run three of the six mother and baby units in England. From March 2025, we will take on a fourth unit.
They provide a unique, supportive environment which enables babies to stay with their mothers who have received a custodial sentence or are on remand. Mothers are encouraged, empowered and inspired to bond with their babies and transform their life chances in the long term.
Our Mother and Baby Units provide a place to help babies thrive through a combination of reassuring evidence-based parenting support, targeted intervention work with the mothers and high-quality nursery provision for the babies.
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 the mothers 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 alongside courses available to them in the wider prison as part of the sentence planning process, and includes group work courses available from Action for Children on a weekly basis. These include the Solihull Approach, anti-natal and post-natal parenting, the Nurture parenting programme and baby massage to name a few.
Early Years
Our nurseries in the Units are Ofsted registered and where they have been inspected have met or received a ‘Good’ rating. They provide high quality, stimulating care for the babies on the Unit and ensure their developmental needs are met and extended through regular community experiences with groups, leisure activities and play resources outside of the prison environment.
Nursery staff are highly qualified and coordinate support plans with Family Support Practitioners delivering interventions to ensure the outcomes for Mothers and their babies are the focus of the team.
Our Team
The team works closely with multi-agency professionals, including from the initial point of application to the Mother and Baby Unit, the provision of an ante-natal support group, the ongoing support and care for the babies and their mothers and preparation for release with our “through the gate” support”.
This is done through regular review meetings 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.
