Thriving Together

Our early experiences shape our brains and affect our lifelong health, behaviour, and learning. A secure, warm, responsive, and predictable relationship between parents (or carers) and child is crucial to healthy, emotional, physical, and intellectual development.

Our development and early mental health, from birth to the age of 5, is influenced by our relationship with our parents and family as well as where we live. Sometimes children and families benefit from some extra help to develop their relationship.

When help is received earlier, it will improve the outcome for the child and help lay down secure foundations for their future development.

Thriving Together aims to strengthen parents or carers so that they can enjoy their relationship with their child, and help them feel confident in being a parent.

Thriving Together also aims to support the development of the child’s emotional wellbeing.

Thriving Together can offer a range of support and advice to parents, from pregnancy, who are struggling to develop a positive relationship with their child.

This could be for a variety of reasons, for example:

• it may have been a difficult pregnancy
• the parent or carer may feel they are struggling to make an emotional connection with their infant or child
• their child may be affected by separation anxiety or may not be developing emotionally in the way that is expected

Thriving Together is also there to help parents and carers whose own experiences may be impacting on their ability to be a parent.

Thriving Together provide support and help to families and babies and children under 5 years of age. It is a multi-agency and multi-disciplinary consultation group made up of the referrer, members from the Thriving Together team, such as a psychologist, child psychotherapist, nurse and educational psychologist and representatives from agencies.

These professionals will meet to discuss how Thriving Together can help build a positive relationship between the parent or carer and child. They will put together an individualised plan of how best to support the family and if needed, offer specialist therapy sessions.

We strive to be a neurodiverse and trauma informed team.

Support that may be offered to families could include:

• Brazelton early baby observations
• mentalisation based treatments
• nursery based observations
• observational skills
• psychoanalytic parent-care work
• psychology based interventions
• short and long-term parent-child psychotherapy
• Solihull Approach resources (access code is TAMAR)
• Solihull Approach tools
• specialist health visiting
• trauma informed treatments
• Video Interaction Guidance
• Watch Me Play

If parent or carer, are struggling to build a relationship with their child, they can ask their early years practitioner, health visitor, midwife, family or social worker to refer them to the Thriving Together service.

The professional worker will complete a CAMHS referral form to the Early Help Hub. They will then be invited to talk to the Thriving Together team about the concerns of the parent.

The Thriving Together consultation group is for professionals who are working with a parent-infant or child relationship they are concerned about.

The consultation group is made up of infant mental health specialists across Cornwall. The referrer will talk to the group about the parent-infant or child relationship and the group, using the language of the Solihull Approach (containment, reciprocity and behaviour management) will generate a plan of the next positive steps.

Following the group a written version of these understandings are sensitively generated for the referrer to feed back to the family.

Professionals are also encouraged to contact the Thriving Together team if they want to talk through the case before they decide to refer to the group.

The child and family may then be referred to services such as:

• CAMHS primary mental health
• Dadpad
• early help
• First Light provide support for people who have been affected by domestic abuse and sexual violence
• health visiting
• Homestart Kernow
• NHS Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Talking Therapies, access to psychological therapies
• perinatal mental health
• play and art psychotherapy projectfor short term therapeutic intervention for 3 to 5-year-olds
• special parenting
• Valued lives
• WILD parenting

Thriving Together resources

• Thriving Together information leaflet (PDF, 286 KB)
• Watch me play manual for parents

Bereavement

• Birth Trauma Association
• Cruse
• Society for Antenatal and Neonatal Deaths (SANDS)

Mindfulness

• Headspace
• Mindfulness Cornwall
• Net mums parenting support for postnatal depression

Parenting and children’s mental health and attachment

• Anna Freud Centre for Children and Families
• Association for Infant Mental Health
• Babygro Book
• Best Beginnings Baby Buddy app
• Bump to baby online presentations
• Cry-sis resources and helpline
• Dads Matter UK
• Hungry Little Minds campaign
• Lullaby Trust
• Minded
• Parent Infant Foundation
• Tiny Happy People
• Vroom
• Your Baby

Resources for professionals

• Child psychotherapy in the early years
• Early years and families: New parents

Self-help CBT

• Get self help
• Psychology tools
• Pregnancy and the-post natal period

Short-term parent-child psychotherapy

• Child psychotherapy

Sleep resources

• Baby Sleep Information Source
• The Sleep Charity
• Sleep Foundation

Substance misuse (drugs and alcohol)

• Addaction
• Think Action