Despite their vulnerability there remains a potentially serious lack of understanding around the mental health needs of infants.
That is the message from Graham Shulman, our head of child psychotherapy, as the board works towards launching its new infant mental health (IMH) service.
Tasked by the Scottish Government as part of its mental health strategy, health boards across the country are setting up dedicated IMH services.
We have been one of two ‘pathfinder’ boards – along with NHS Fife – at the forefront of developing the service. This was in recognition of well-established and unique developments in both IMH provision and a range of targeted IMH training in Lanarkshire delivered by child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).
Graham, who is also a consultant child and adolescent psychotherapist, is lead for the new service.
He said: “Infants are the most vulnerable group in our society and it’s not always understood that infants can have serious emotional and attachment difficulties and even disorders.
“Early identification and intervention are vital in this critical period of development, when the foundations of mental health for a lifetime are being built.
“There remain significant inequalities and barriers to infants accessing specialist mental health services. These can include lack of services, ignorance, prejudice and stigma.
“We’re determined that, with the new service about to launch, this is set to change.
“The phased roll out the Infant Mental Health Service is gathering pace. We are now setting up a dedicated schedule of meetings with Health Visitor and Family Nurse teams which will take place over the coming months.”
Graham’s words are reflected in the service’s motto ‘Infant Minds Matter’.
How the IMH service will work
The new service is dedicated to developing an infant-centred specialist service with an infant-centred approach to IMH and supporting services contributing to infant mental health in Lanarkshire.
With this in mind, a three-pronged strategic approach is being taken:
- Development of a direct IMH clinical service for infants with moderate to severe mental health difficulties;
- Rolling out multi-disciplinary and multi-agency IMH training and up-skilling the wider workforce;
- IMH awareness and consciousness raising.
The strategy’s core elements include the development of a Lanarkshire infant mental health observational indicator set which is a shared frame of reference for use across all agencies, as well as a learnPro module ‘Infant Mental Health: When to be Concerned’.
Graham said: “The involvement of people with lived-experience in informing and shaping service development, and the involvement and inclusion of the voluntary sector in developments, have been key, and invaluable, components.
“The whole project has been very complex to set up and we’ve greatly benefitted from the varied skillset across the team as well as the invaluable ongoing input, co-ordination and support of Karen Grant, our project manager seconded from National Services Scotland.”
Health visitors (HV) and family nurse partnership (FNP) nurses will play a vital role in the assessment, monitoring and promotion of infant mental health, as well as identifying potential mental health concerns in individual infants.
Graham added: “The IMH team is piloting and developing systems and close working links with HV/FNP teams and managers. This will include an HV/FNP IMH consultation and advice line with the support of the health improvement programme led by early years’ service improvement co-ordinator Sandra MacInnes and Vivian Boxhall, health improvement manager for children and young people.
“The infant mental health team has been designed to be multi-disciplinary and multi-agency with a distinctive approach which puts the individual infant at the heart and centre of everything being undertaken.”
The infant mental health team launches on Monday 20 September. A designated IMH section on the website is being created and will go live soon.
