Baby's First Yarn: Cultural co-design of a baby-led, infant mental health support for Aboriginal families in the first 100 days.
Dr. Susan Nicolson , Royal Women's Hospital, Centre for Womens Mental Health, Parkville, Melbourne, Australia
Kathy Crouch: Mallee District Aboriginal Service (MDAS), Mildura, Australia,
Presented at WAIMH 17th World Congress, Brisbane, Australia, 2021 in the Symposium entitled: Towards cultural safety, family access, infant wellbeing: Global stories of early parent-infant relationship support using the Newborn Behavioral Observations (NBO).
Abstract
Introduction:
Frontline workers bear witness to the lives and losses of the families they support. For staff working in the Early Years space in Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) this requires holding the tensions of their community, and their own families along with those of the babies and wider care systems accessing the service. Professional development for them must thus be tailored and able to wrap around their whole lives, not just their position descriptions. Adding to this, generational traumas must be acknowledged, with institutionalised toxins such as protective service involvement, racism and shame being sensitively considered.
Aims:
To support the caseworkers of Mallee District Aboriginal Services (MDAS), a baby-led learning space offering education about infant development and parenting was required. This space also needed to keep learning culturally safe, honour tensions between professional and personal development and provide support for yarning and private healing. The Newborn Behavioral Observations (NBO) training was almost ideal, yet its standalone 1.5 day delivery did not adequately address the particular skills, needs, confidence and learning styles of the MDAS frontline staff.
Description:
A 2 year co-designed learning system project was implemented to expand NBO material, increase staff reflection and honour cultural yarning. Five staff focus groups were completed, with an open yarning session filmed for reflective consideration. A training video of community families engaging in NBOs with a clinical expert was created, highlighting teachable moments. A re-labelling of NBO concepts to consider culture created a localised, accepted framework entitled ‘Baby’s First Yarn’.
Conclusions:
Time, conversation and reflection is required to improve the infant mental health skills of frontline staff who are not clinically or tertiary qualified to case manage vulnerable families in Community. Co-designed, culturally-informed resources have been instrumental in raising confidence and commitment in ongoing NBO and non-clinical infant mental health work at MDAS.
Biography:
Dr. Nicolson's clinical and research work is focussed on early relationship support for vulnerable families from diverse backgrounds. She is a Master Trainer in the Newborn Behavioural Observations (NBO).
Kathy Crouch is a registered psychologist with post graduate degrees in Adult Education, Training and Development and Forensic Mental Health. She has a Certificate of Applied Behavioural Analysis, Advanced Diploma of Management, Diploma of Leadership and Diploma of Therapeutic Life Story Work. Her work at Mallee District Aboriginal Service involves supporting staff, families and Community and providing trauma- informed systems delivery and attachment-rich consultation from conception and across the life span.