Happy first birthday to the Growing Well Together service!
The specialist service supporting families to build strong, nurturing bonds with their babies is celebrating its first birthday this June.
Growing Well Together, which launched in June 2024, is a Parent-Infant Relationship Service (PAIRS) – part of Navigo’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and North East Lincolnshire Council’s Start for Life programme.
The team celebrated their first birthday with an afternoon event at the Central Children’s Centre in Grimsby, welcoming some of the families they support.
The Growing Well Together team has looked back on a successful first 12 months working with families and professionals to help give local babies the best possible start in life.
Dr Marian Quinn, Consultant Clinical Psychologist for the team said: “We are thrilled to celebrate our first year of delivering specialist parent-infant relationship support in North East Lincolnshire. We have met incredible families who needed a bit of extra support to help strengthen those early connections with their baby.
"It’s been a privilege to walk alongside them, supporting the development of safe, secure, and loving relationships – and we’re looking forward to continuing this important work in the year ahead.”
Designed to support families going through difficulties in the early stages of parenthood, the service offers emotional and practical help for parents and carers from pregnancy through to their baby’s second birthday.
Growing Well Together recognises how important early relationships for a baby’s social, emotional, and mental wellbeing can be for families. The service works with expectant parents, parents and caregivers, supporting them through things like bonding difficulties, anxiety, birth trauma, or their own experiences of being parented.
The team also works with professionals including midwives, health visitors, GPs, social workers, and early-years services to ensure babies and their parents and caregivers get joined-up, compassionate support.
The impact of the service has been praised by those who have been supported.
Here's what some people who have received support have said:
“The team are amazing! They helped me and my family get through our worries and stress. They helped me understand my bond with my baby – I’d be lost without them.
"The support I got made me a better mum and partner.”
“Every person I met through this service changed my life for the better. They took me out of a very dark place that I couldn’t see changing.”
The anniversary of the service launch happens to be during Infant Mental Health Awareness Week (10–16 June) – a national campaign which highlights why those first 1001 days of life are so vital. The theme of this year’s awareness week is ‘'Who is holding the baby?’, which highlights how parents who are overwhelmed by trauma, or struggling with mental or physical health difficulties, need support– and why support during this time can be so valuable.
In the words of author L.R. Knost, a quote that has become like a motto for the Growing Well Together team: “We’re all imperfect parents and that’s ok. Tiny humans need connection, not perfection.”
For more information and to refer to the service please visit the Growing Well Together webpage.