Championing Perinatal Experience as a Psychological Practitioner

Date: 18th June 2024

Time: 11:00am - 12:15pm

On 18th June 2024 Lucy Malyon and myself co-facilitated the first 'Championing Perinatal Experience as a Psychological Practitioner' event for the PPN South East.

As the inaugural perinatal Community of Practice (CoP) event we were delighted to have such a diverse attendance including Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners, Mental Health Wellbeing Practitioners, representation from Primary and Secondary care, and academic professionals. This depth and breadth of experience and backgrounds created a rich back drop for discussion.

With the diverse mix of participants in attendance, and due to being a relatively small group we agreed to stay as one for discussion rather than split into smaller rooms, which worked very well in this instance.

Our discussion was structured around two main features - first, existing successes and challenges, and secondly, hopes for future practice and direction for these CoP events.

We began with a few minutes of personal reflection on these aspects of championing perinatal experiences, and utilised a Padlet for all participants to see and add to. This proved a useful resource throughout the discussion to reflect on current experiences and to add thoughts to the Padlet as the conversation continued.

Discussion around successes was insightful and encouraging - to hear of successful projects within the region was a breath of fresh air for many, as well as smaller aspects of clinical practice which are going well in terms of championing the experience for perinatal clients. Reflections on challenges equally generated a great deal of discussion with many sharing the same frustrations and coming up against the same barriers.

We rounded up the session by exploring the future direction of this group and thinking about wider needs within practice, both in discussion and through including these questions in immediate feedback via Menti. There are two strands to the overarching aims for future direction - championing the experience of perinatal clients, and seeking to enhance our practice as perinatal champions. Specific areas included the desire for an increase in perinatal specific training for both qualified and trainee practitioners, and building a network of practitioners who have a perinatal interest or perinatal champion role.

The feedback from attendees was very positive and has given us some ideas for focus within future events. Alongside this there is a clear desire to build a network of perinatal champions within psychological professions, especially connecting clinician groups who are smaller in number across the psychological professions network. As the facilitators, we were inspired by the attendance, engagement and ideas that arose out of this event and we are excited to explore future events focusing on championing perinatal experience.

Rebekah Wells

Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner (Central Team)

Perinatal Champion