Every Baby Matters resources
The Derby and Derbyshire Safeguarding Children Partnership has developed a set of resources for practitioners to ensure the needs of babies are being met. The resources, including observations poster and visual tool and associated guidance, has been drawn up following learning from previous cases. The resources will help colleagues identify vulnerabilities in families caring for a baby and provide guidance about where to find further help and support. It is specifically designed to support practitioners who come into contact or work with families where there is an infant under one year old. It does not replace any other assessment tool or process but it may help to enhance those assessments with a particular focus on the baby.
The visual tool is to enhance and support the early conversations with families about their relationship and parenting of their baby. It is designed to give practitioners information on how to increase their awareness of the parent/carer relationship and to identify any vulnerabilities by using skills of observation and open-ended questioning that will produce quality conversations and enhance contacts/visits and assessments. There is no expectation to ask all of the questions or for the tool to be used at one contact or visit. It is not designed to be used as a check list merely to support practitioners to explore and consider the lived experience of the baby and identify any areas where a family would benefit from additional support.
The guidance document explains the resources and how to use the tool including how it can be used with families in the early help stages of support and how the tool can be utilised to support other assessments including during pregnancy.
You can also find more details on the Derby and Derbyshire Safeguarding Children Partnership website: Keeping Babies Safe (ddscp.org.uk) or contact our DCHS Safeguarding Team if you have any queries: DCHST.Safeguardingservice@nhs.net