Last week was Health Visitor Week, an event promoted by organisations such as the Institute of Health Visiting and the Unite Trade Union, with the “intention of making health visiting as conspicuous as possible”.  Using hashtags such as #HVWeek and #ProudtobeaHV, health visitors were encouraged to share photos, videos and stories on Twitter and other social media platforms.

We are already hugely aware of the enormous benefit that health visitors make to the lives of parents and children. The support of health visitors across Cornwall was invaluable in getting our first ever DadPad pilot scheme off the ground.  Our aim has always been to produce a resource that health professionals support and respect, and which they can use alongside new dads in order to enhance their role.

We thought that #HVWeek would be a great opportunity for us to get our message about the DadPad out to a wider audience, and we therefore got involved in some of the daily conversations taking place across the week.

For Tuesday’s topic of “Healthy weight and the family”, which included a focus on encouraging and supporting women to breastfeed, we reminded people about the importance of getting dad involved, too:

It’s #HVWeek & today’s theme explores how to improve #breastfeeding rates. Support, reassurance & encouragement from #dad can be crucial!

— The DadPad (@dadpaduk) August 22 2017

For Wednesday’s topic of “The health conversation”, we of course flagged up the role that the DadPad can play in this:

Health conversations: #dadpad is a great resource for getting key health messages to #newdads & #newparents #HVWeek https://t.co/uuGBzdMSxc

— The DadPad (@dadpaduk) August 23 2017

Thursday saw the focus turn to “Maternal and infant mental health”.  We couldn’t miss the chance to remind everyone that dad is often key in spotting early signs of difficulty in mum, but also that his mental health shouldn’t be overlooked, either:

Health pros: use of #dadpad can help #newdads & #newparents understand different roles & assist transition #HVWeek https://t.co/uuGBzdMSxc

— The DadPad (@dadpaduk) August 25 2017

Finally, the week ended on Friday with conversations on how best to facilitate the transition from midwife to health visitor and beyond.  Once again, this is where we see the DadPad having a really important role!

Mum(& dad)’s #mentalhealth: #dadpad incs useful info for #newdads on spotting & getting support for #pnd etc #HVweek https://t.co/uuGBzdMSxc

— The DadPad (@dadpaduk) August 24, 2017

We’re still fairly new to Twitter (and the joys of trying to get our message across in just 140 characters!), but we were delighted to see some positive responses – in the form of both ‘likes’ and ‘retweets’ – from a range of people.  If you don’t already follow us on Twitter, click on the link to get to our profile page and then just hit ‘Follow’!