Parent-infant contact in the pandemic
Published:
Enabling parent-infant face-to-face contact in the pandemic – view ideas and resources shared by practice leaders across the Research in Practice network. Resources include a write up of two virtual forums held in June, shared risk assessment and guidance documents and two podcast interviews.
Introduction
These resources are outputs from a project coordinated by the Centre for Child and Family Justice Research at Lancaster University. We are working with the project team to swiftly build knowledge to enable face-to-face interaction between parents and infants in the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. View the project site.
To inform this work, we spoke to practice leaders from across the Research in Practice Partner network in two virtual forums in June. The information they shared on 'enabling parent-infant contact in the pandemic' is written up in this briefing. Two podcast recordings share learning from follow up conversations with practice leaders in Essex and Leeds. Three further documents are risk assessment and guidance materials shared by colleagues in Bradford, Leeds and Rochdale.
We hope that these materials, and future outputs from this project, will enable other authorities to move swiftly to enable infant parent interaction that is so vital to relationship-based support to children and families.
Resources
These resources are open access.
Enabling parent-infant interaction (contact, parenting assessment) in lockdown and social distancing conditions. Practice forum write up
City of Bradford Metropolitan Council – Contact/family time risk assessment and phase one guidance
Leeds City Council – Promoting family time during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Rochdale Borough Council – Direct Family Time – Triangulated Risk Assessment
Essex County Council - Rising to the challenge: Managing infant-parent contact arrangements during the COVID-19 pandemic: Podcast
Claire Mason, Research Fellow at Centre for Child and Family Justice Research, Lancaster University, talks to Helen Lincoln, Executive Director for Children, Families and Education about their response to the challenges of infant-parent contact in COVID-19 conditions.
How Leeds City Council enabled parent-infant contact during lockdown: Podcast
This podcast is available to Partners of Research in Practice.
Susannah Bowyer, Assistant Director of Research in Practice talks to Farrah Khan, Head of Quality and Practice Improvement and the Principal Social Worker at Leeds City Council to explore how they have enabled face to face, infant-parent interaction during the lockdown period since March to learn from their pro-active work.
Listen to the podcast. Sign in to your Research in Practice account to access.
Professional Standards
PQS:KSS - Relationships and effective direct work | Communication | Child development | Adult mental ill health, substance misuse, domestic abuse, physical ill health and disability | Abuse and neglect of children | Child and family assessment | Analysis, decision-making, planning and review | The law and the family and youth justice systems | Shaping and influencing the practice system | Effective use of power and authority | Purposeful and effective social work | Lead and govern excellent practice | Designing a system to support effective practice
PCF - Values and ethics | Rights, justice and economic wellbeing | Intervention and skills