Last Wednesday, 17th May 2023, Julian and Georgie from Team DadPad – together with our good friend and fellow ‘dad-vocate’ Scott Mair, from Fathers Network Scotland, who has lived-experience of being a neonatal dad himself – were delighted to attend the National Care Co-ordinator Conference in Huntingdon.  Organised by the East of England Neonatal Operational Delivery Network, the Conference brought together the Care Co-ordinators from across the UK who are working to assist and support neonatal units in their region to develop, improve and enhance family care.  This year’s Conference had a clear focus on the FICare – or Family Integrated Care – approach to neonatal care which we’ve looked at in a previous blog post. 

After the Conference, at which we were the Gold Sponsors, we asked Julian and Georgie to share with us their reflections on the day…

Julian’s reflections:

The Conference felt ground-breaking.  Despite the FICare framework having been around for some years now, a lot of us who want to get involved in supporting FICare’s key principles and ambitions became more and more enthused as the day went on.  This culminated in an outstanding example of how FICare could be implemented, as Ailie Hodgson, Care Co-ordinator at the Northern Neonatal Network, talked through the research visit that she and a team from her Network had undertaken to study and learn from the successful implementation of the FICare culture in Sweden. She also shared insights that those pioneering units – who are embedding FICare in the UK – had taken from her and her colleagues’ study time in Sweden.

I was blown away by the ongoing understanding that FICare requires a culture-shift and felt, as a group, that we were able to see a clearer route to implementing meaningful change via FICare. This clarity was especially helped by Nadia Leake‘s Frugal FICare presentation.

For our part, as DadPad, we can see that major collaborations with the various PAGs (Parent Advisory Groups) and MNVPs (Maternity & Neonatal Voices Partnerships) should be firmly in our plans.  With our clear purpose of engaging and supporting new fathers and partners, we will be in a prime position to collect the voices and better understand the needs of this under-engaged-with demographic. We can then share this information with the emerging supportive environment surrounding those parents whose baby/ies are receiving neonatal care.

Whilst we all witnessed emotional testimony, which definitely firmed up our purpose for supporting neonatal networks, it was the input from consultant clinical psychologist leads Rebecca Chilvers (of the East of England Neonatal ODN) and Ruth Butterworth (of the North West Neonatal ODN) which, I felt, held the keys to a better understanding of how to enable and achieve a positive cultural change.

Their focus on creating safety and connection took into account all of us as individuals, and our need to care for each other in every circumstance. This, alongside their explanation of the Compassionate Mind Approach, helped us all understand how we need others to contain our own emotional safety.  While this feels particularly important in our own work – aimed at getting fathers and partners involved in their baby’s care in order to contain their baby’s emotional safety – it certainly also applies to staff relationships and the need to support one another in a high-stress and difficult environment.

Georgie’s reflections:

It’s been a while since I attended a professional conference of this nature – in fact, the last time I attended an event like this was in my service user voice roles, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic!  What stood out for me the most, throughout the day, was the culture shift towards integrating lived-experience into professional learning.

Rather than having service-user presentations at the very end of the day – as was often the case when I was a service-user representative – the whole of the morning’s agenda was dedicated to service-user experience.  There wasn’t just one, but six-plus voices speaking up to share their lived-experience of neonatal care, and I was pleased that the level of co-design and co-production with Neonatal and Maternity PAGs and MNVPs has increased since I left my local and national Patient and Public Voice (PPV) roles in 2020.

Throughout the day all three of us – myself, Julian and Scott – were kept busy with visitors to the DadPad stand (at one point it was difficult for any of us to leave the room!), and it was fantastic to see so many neonatal professionals so interested in both the established and our up-and-coming resources that we at Inspire Cornwall/DadPad have to offer dads and non-birthing parents.  I was particularly excited to be able to share the Co-ParentPad at a professional event for the first time, and the feedback I heard got me excited for future possibilities to further expand our offer to LGBTQI+ parents.

After lunch, Julian and Scott shared their unique perspectives and their personal and professional lived-experiences as dads.  Scott’s presentation should really have come with a ‘mascara warning’ as he shared his personal neonatal experience as a dad.  Both Julian and Scott’s presentations were really impactful on the audience, and led to a reflective Q&A session.

A final word from Julian:

Ultimately, fathers are necessary within FICare, and engagement is key and should not be assumed.  Therefore, in the spirit of remembering that true co-production happens when everyone works together, we are fully invested in working with neonatal colleagues to ensure the long-term success of FICare, and the achievement of all the many benefits that it can bring.

For further information on the Neonatal Networks:

British Association of Perinatal Medicine (BAPM) – Neonatal Networks webpage

Neonatal Operational Delivery Networks across the UK:

East of England – and Parent Advisory Group

East Midlands – and Parent Advisory Group

Kent, Surrey & Sussex – and Parent Advisory Group

London – and Parent Advisory Group

Northern

North West – and Parent Advisory Group

South West – and South West Parents Group

Thames Valley & Wessex – and Parent Advisory Group

West Midlands – and Parent Advisory Group

Yorkshire & Humber – and Parent Advisory Group

Scotland

Northern Ireland

Wales