Zero to four: Maudsley infant mental health two-day conference 2022

By attending this infant mental health conference you will:

1. Improve awareness of national policy and agenda in early intervention and prevention
2. Improve your knowledge of specific evidence-based interventions used with 0-4 year olds
3. Learn about group interventions used with parents and carers
4. Learn clinical skills to facilitate talking to 0-4s about traumatic experiences
5. Learn about latest research in infant mental health

Helen Minnis, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Glasgow

Helen is Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Glasgow. She has had a longstanding clinical and research focus on the mental health problems of abused and neglected children. She is currently leading two randomised controlled trials, one of an infant mental health service for young children in foster care and another of Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy for primary school-aged children in adoptive or foster placements. She has collaborations with colleagues at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London, the Universities of Aalborg and Aarhus, Denmark and with the Gillberg Neuropsychiatry Centre, Gothenburg, Sweden.

Talk Title: Silent symptoms in young maltreated children

Julie Larrieu, Ph.D., developmental and clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Tulane University School of Medicine

Julie is the Senior Psychologist and Supervisor at the Tulane Parenting Education Program, a multidisciplinary team that provides intensive intervention to maltreated infants, young children, and their families. Julie is an endorsed International Trainer for Child-Parent Psychotherapy, an evidence-based treatment model for young children and their caregivers who have experienced trauma and sudden loss.

Talk Title: Relationship Repair using Child-Parent Psychotherapy: “My Baby has Evil Anger”

This presentation provides an overview of an evidence-based treatment for children ages birth to six years who have experienced trauma and their caregivers. Child-Parent Psychotherapy (CPP) is a model of intervention based on attachment, social learning, and psychodynamic principles. The methods involved in the treatment and recommendations for use of the model will be discussed. Video-recorded interactions will be used to illustrate the model.

Dr Jill Domoney Research Clinical Psychologist in the Section of Women’s Mental Health at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King’s College London

Jill specialises in perinatal and infant mental health and the links between mental health and violence. Her research to date has included developing interventions for antenatal depression, evaluating interventions for pregnant couples where there is domestic violence, and exploring the ways that sexual assault referral centres respond to mental health needs.

Talk Title: Breaking the cycle of abuse: Fathers views of taking part in a perinatal programme to reduce domestic violence.

Domestic violence and abuse (DVA) in pregnancy is a significant public health issue, with poor physical and mental health outcomes for both women and children. The ‘For Baby’s Sake’ programme is a whole family approach that addresses the cycles of DVA and seeks to improve mental health and parent child attachment by targeting couples during pregnancy. This talk will present interview data from fathers who engaged with ‘For Baby’s Sake’, exploring their motivations for taking part and their journey towards change.

Dr Melanie Palmer, PhD, King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) &Dr Victoria Hallett PhD, DClinPsy, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

Talk Title: Predictive Parenting: Developing and Evaluating a Novel Group Parenting Intervention in Young Autistic Children

As part of the Autism Spectrum Treatment and Resilience (ASTAR) study, we developed a new group parenting intervention to target behavioural and emotional difficulties in young autistic children. We will share details of the new intervention and results from our pilot randomised control trial. We will also discuss our new 2 year follow-up findings, exploring parent stress and child irritability during the Covid pandemic.

Sally Hogg, Head of Policy and Communications, Parent-Infant Foundation

Sal is currently Head of Policy and Communications at the Parent-Infant Foundation, where she leads work to raise awareness of the importance of the earliest years, and to drive change at a local and national level. Sally coordinates the All-Party Parliamentary Group for conception to age 2 and chairs the First 1001 Days Movement, a campaigning alliance of over 200 charities and professional bodies. Prior to this, Sal’s roles included Strategic Lead at the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, Senior Commissioner in a Local Authority and Development Manager for Children Under One at the NSPCC, where she developed and implemented research-led interventions. Sal started her career as a Civil Servant working on Children’s Policy in Westminster and New South Wales, Australia. She has authored a range of influential policy reports relating to the importance of the earliest years of life and issues affecting families during that time.

Talk Title: Tackling the Baby Blindspot

This presentation will talk about current opportunities and challenges for babies’ mental health in Westminster Government policy and its implementation. Sal will also describe the work the Parent-Infant Foundation and First 1001 Days Movement are doing to encourage action and investment to tackle the historic “baby blindspot”.

Edmund Sonuga-Barke Professor of Developmental Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience at the Institute of Psychology, Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Kings College London

He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. Motivated by his own experience of growing up with learning disabilities his research focuses on improving the lives of children and adolescents with neuro-developmental disorders. His work aims to develop new interventions by employing basic developmental science approaches to study underlying genetic and environmental risk and resilience sources and mediating brain mechanisms. He has been elected Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (2016) and Fellow of The British Academy (2018). He has been included in the Clarivate list of “most influential” in Psychology/Psychiatry for the high impact of his work.

Talk Title: Supporting parenting in the digital age: The story of two new app based interventions

Parent training is an effective way of supporting parents to manage their children challenging behaviour. However, it can be expensive and cumbersome to deliver, reducing its utility and cost effectiveness in many settings. To address these limitations we have recently developed two digital app-based parenting interventions tailored to support parents in two different settings. STEPS (Sructured E-Parenting Scheme) is designed to support parents whose children have been referred for ADHD type problems but are waiting for assessment and treatment. Parent Positive (PP) was developed specifically to support parents in the community during the pandemic. In this talk I will discuss how these apps were developed, describe their structure content and outline two ongoing trials, OPTIMA and SPARKLE.

Charles H. Zeanah, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Pediatrics, Tulane University School of Medicine

Talk Title: Placement Changes for Children in Foster Care: Planful Transitions

Dr Siobhan Higgins, Consultant Clinical Psychologist & Clinical Psychology Lead for the Kent Surrey and Sussex Neonatal ODN Medway NHS Foundation Trust

Siobhan is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and holds one of the new Clinical Psychology Lead posts to develop and enhance psychological services in neonatal units in England. Siobhan has a clinical background in Under 5s, as well as generic and neurodevelopmental CAMHS teams. In addition to her clinical psychology training, Siobhan is also a trained Parent-Infant Psychotherapist with a passion and specialist experience working with women in pregnancy and families in the early years.

Talk Title: Developing Psychological Services to Support Parents and Infants in the Neonatal Units- Context, Focus and Future Planning

Chris McCree Parental Mental Health Lead, Helping Families Team and Perinatal Community Services. Centre for Parent and Child Support, South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

Talk Title: Innovation in Parental Mental Health interventions (For parents of children 0-4)

Carol Hardy, Under 5’s Lead and Clinical Specialist, Southwark CAMHS, SLaM

Carol Hardy is an Under 5s Clinical Specialist in a CAMH service in Southwark and is co-chair of the Under 5s Clinical Pathway group in SLaM. She has a longstanding interest and involvement in clinical and service developments for under 5s and their families. She trialled an under 5s assessment/intervention model with colleagues (later known as SUSI) in two separate clinical research studies in Southwark between 2010-2017 and delivers training programmes on under 5s mental health to colleagues in agencies across different settings.

Julia Forman, Lecturer in Statistics and Epidemiology, Department of Women and Children’s Health, King’s College London

Julia Forman is a Lecturer in Applied Statistics and Epidemiology, in the Department of Women and Children’s Health, King’s College London. Her research interests focus on children’s development, public health, and inequalities, and particularly the implementation and evaluation of services for children and families. She works on the evaluation of the Children and Young People’s Health Partnership, and research projects under the umbrella of the NIHR South London Applied Research Collaboration.

Talk Title: Creating new pathways for Under 5s mental health - outcomes from an implementation project in Southwark CAMHS

The presentation will describe the delivery of a new under 5s mental health provision in a borough with significant health inequalities. This need for early preventive work was evidenced in the SUSI under 5s study in Southwark, prior to the pandemic. The greater level of need that has arisen since adds to the urgency in addressing the adversity faced by vulnerable populations of babies and young children and for families to access support sooner. Feedback from families and partner agencies, and service uptake, along with a description of a new training initiative will be presented.

Ms Fatima Martinez del Solar, Fellow British Psychoanalytical Society. Psychoanalyst in Private practice and Director of 10 Windsor Walk Community Interest Company

Prof Inge-Martine Pretorius (PhD & DPsych), Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist child and adolescent psychotherapist working in private practice. Teacher internationally

Talk Title: Refugee and Asylum seeking Families Therapeutic playgroup . - Psychoanalysis in the Community

We will describe the journey of setting up a community based psychoanalytic playgroup for asylum seeking and refugees families within 10 Windsor Walk - Community Interest Company.

Dr Rachel Mycroft is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Chair of the British Psychological Society Faculty of Perinatal Psychology. She is lead for Perinatal Psychology in Community Perinatal Mental Health Services in South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust

Rachel has extensive experience of perinatal mental health and perinatal psychological therapies, with particular expertise in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy as applied in the perinatal period and special interests in tokophobia, birth trauma and the use of video feedback to support parent infant relationships. She is experienced in leadership and service development across specialist perinatal services locally and nationally, including the development of new Maternal Mental Health Services which focus on perinatal loss and trauma. She regularly delivers supervision, teaching and training across a range of settings and helped to establish national competences for perinatal psychological therapies and the national Perinatal Clinical Psychology Training programme.

Talk title: Working Simultaneously with Parental and Infant Mental Health: Developing Psychological Therapies in Perinatal Community Mental Health Services as Part of the NHS Long Term Plan

This would include a summary of current policy drivers and examples of how it is being implemented in practice within SLaM with a focus on parental and infant mental health and the inter-relationship between them.

Download the infant mental health training conference programme for day one and day two here.