About
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The programme provides a safe space for mothers to explore their experience of early parenting and reflect on the relationship with their baby in a non-judgemental and non-competitive environment. Each Mother Baby Nurture Group has two facilitators, with specialised skills and experience in perinatal and infant mental health. MBN is a reflective group, and aims to strengthen the mother’s reflective capacity, and in doing so enhance the mother’s sensitivity to her infant’s cues. It also promotes the participant’s confidence, emotional well-being, and connects them to peer, family and community support networks.
Facilitators use elements of therapeutic models such as Circle of Security, Watch Wait and Wonder, Mentalising and Mindfulness to develop the mother's awareness and understanding of her and her baby's mental state. Funded by City of Melville, the very first MBN Group was piloted in 2009 by Community Midwifery WA (later known as The Bump WA). In partnership with Communicare, another group started in Armadale, sponsored by Communities for Children. By 2011 the City of Mandurah responded and the third MBN commenced. From June 2012 to 2016, The Bump WA received Department funding to continue delivering MBN groups in four Perth metropolitan locations. In June 2016, when the grant was expended and The Bump WA’s Community Midwifery Programme moved under the management of Women and Newborn Health Services, Playgroup WA were sub-contracted to deliver MBN in its current form. In recent years the Department of Health and Swan Alliance (Communities for Children) have funded MBN in up to seven locations in Perth, Western Australia. Radiance SouthWest deliver groups in Busselton (and soon Bunbury and Margaret River). |
2023 Published paper describing the Mother-Baby Nurture Program
Channel 7 News 27th July 2021 - MBN documentary launch
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