The importance of involving parents
Involving mothers and their partners in discussing and designing their care during their pregnancy and the early years has the potential to make an important contribution to care. This is known as ‘co-production’ and is a key concept in developing public services. Done right, it should lead to services that are more effective, person-centred, better aligned with needs, improving outcomes and experiences for those receiving care.
The Best for Baby Too Collaborative wanted to find effective ways to work in partnership with parents with lived experience. The collaborative workshops needed to feel different – to generate energy, purpose and to be something that everyone looked forward to attending. We wanted all members to feel that they could contribute to discussions in a way that felt comfortable for them, providing a safe space for sharing of ideas and concerns. In particular, we wanted parents to feel visible, confident in their contributions and for them to feel that the health and care professionals in the room were people they would like to work with.
We knew we could not do this on our own, so we asked local arts organisations and Third Sector providers if they would help. The brief was simple: to bring together a group of parents and ask them what they felt health and care professionals in perinatalservices needed to hear and understand. We invited them to share their views with us, and to use creative or performing arts, to amplify their message. The outcomes and impact have been inspiring. Below are some examples from our collaborators.
Our partners in co-production
We worked with:
- Liverpool Lighthouse providing a creative sanctuary in the community
- Refugee Women Connect a women-only charity in Liverpool that works with asylum seekers, refugees and survivors of trafficking
- Collective Encounters specialises in theatre for social change
- PSS provides support for families who have been through unsteady times
- Performance poet Levi Tafari
- More Than Minutes, who provide graphic visualisations of meetings
- Communications agency Wordscape, who helped us produce plain English newsletters
- Film-maker and photographer Brian Roberts, who made many of the short films on this website
- Zest Event Management helped us keep it all on track
Liverpool Lighthouse and Refugee Women Connect
Liverpool Lighthouse and Refugee Women Connect brought together a group of women who began by expressing their thoughts and views through a performance poem that they wrote together. Kindness Goes a Long Way was performed at a workshop in front of over 50 child and maternity health professionals. Watch the five minute film of the performance poem ‘Kindness Goes a Long Way’ here.
The women chose a name for their group – the Creative Influencers – and took on a facilitation role, bringing a culture-changing sense of fun and inclusiveness to the network. Watch this five minute summary of the 29 March 2023 Best for Baby Improvement Collaborative workshop, including the ‘Good News’ activity being facilitated by the Creative Influencers, at 2.30 minutes.
Then came a script for a play, Building a Best for Baby Revolution, which was performed four times in Liverpool throughout 2023, including a performance at Liverpool Women’s Hospital. Watch a three minute trailer about the play, ‘Building a Best for Baby Revolution’. The play included verbatim theatre, based on the real stories and experiences of women, puppetry, singing and music. Statistics compiled from NHS and research data created a compelling case for change in how maternity services are delivered for women in the asylum system.
It was felt that a film of the play would be more sustainable because of the planning and preparation involved. Liverpool Lighthouse set about raising the funds for a film, and the leads for midwifery training from Liverpool Women’s Hospital and universities came together to help, culminating in the production of the film, When You Know… Childbirth in the Asylum System.
Designed to inform health staff about heath inequalities for mothers and babies in the asylum system, the film and accompanying resources raise awareness of the hidden challenges faced by this group of women and babies, who are disproportionately represented in maternal and neonatal deaths. The film explores themes of fear, access and isolation – and highlights how these issues increase clinical risk. Solutions are proposed by the women, enabling and empowering viewers to reflect on their own actions to influence change.
The Creative Influencers continue their efforts to change practice and policy via showings of the film and training events. The film was shown on February 2025 in Westminster attended by politicians and national leads from across perinatal services.
Collective Encounters and PSS
PSS Parent-Baby Service has a long history of work to support parents and babies, of championing co-production and raising awareness about the intrinsic link between poverty and mental distress. Its parent-baby service was behind the development of a short film promoting the importance of the early years Best for Baby Too. PSS has been a key partner in the Best for Baby Too Collaborative.
PSS worked with Collective Encounters to use creativity to develop its parent-baby co-production group and to deliver training in co-production for the members of the Collaborative. Thanks to further funding from Liverpool Children and Families Directorate, Collective Encounters and PSS became part of an engagement project called ‘Families in Action’, which used creativity to understand the needs of seldom-heard families and influence the development of Liverpool City Council’s Family Hub service.
The collaboration between PSS and Collective Encounters has enabled parents to develop skills, confidence and peer support networks. Those participating have contributed to public events and strategic reports, they have gone on to undertake further education and training, accessed volunteering opportunities and secured paid work as they develop their career ambitions.
A recent conference on co-production and peer support showed how it has the power to transform how people experience mental health and social care services – and how providers deliver them. Reflecting on their experience of this event, mothers commented:
I found it empowering, it was the first time I have properly spoken to people that don’t know me. My confidence grew. It was the first time speaking on a mic to a large audience and It felt good doing it.
At first I was just reading word for word and then it felt natural to look up in the faces of the people and just talk.
I liked the inclusion of all the different people and mothers involved. Everyone got a chance to have a voice. A lot of people who come here didn’t think they’d ever get listened to in their life and we had an opportunity to be listened to.
Having been in care is something that I am happy to talk about so that wasn’t new as I’d already spoken about it at the lord mayor’s event but I was surprised at how confident I was engaging with people, asking them questions directly and challenging the audience. A big wave of confidence came over me. I felt really supported. We were all supporting each other.
For more information about co-production
Co-production: what it is and how to do it – SCIE