Who: The Cwm Taf Morgannwg Early Years Transformation team, a statutory task and finish team working on implementing recommendations for supporting parents and young children across the region.
The brief: To engage with new mothers in the development of an online resource covering the first 1000 days of life (from pregnancy till 2 years old), signposting to trusted information and regional or national services.
What I did: A first draft of the online resource was collated by Early Years professionals from across the region, and gathered a range of credible and reliable sources. I worked with the Participation and Engagement Officer of the Cwm Taf Morgannwg Early Years Tranformation team, and other stakeholders such as health colleagues and heads of services, to create buy-in and overcome their initial reluctance to share a draft, unfinished, resource with potential end users.
Parents were then involved in order to gather early feedback on the prototype resource. I designed engagement sessions to run with the Participation and Engagement Officer, based around conversations with young mothers of newborn babies; we met them at existing groups and activities they already attended (e.g. language and play group, postnatal group, baby massage group).
The parents accessed the draft resource on their phones via a QR code and commented on contents, structure and user experience; they also shared wider information about their experience of pregnancy, labour and birth, and adjusting to life with a newborn. The insights on the resource structure in practicular, and the way in which they would navigate the information, were really helpful for the development of the final product.
I collated all the findings into a summary report, and shared as much as I could of the richness of the conversations and the insights afforded by hearing mothers’ experiences first hand, in a playback session with the Early Years Transformation team.
What they said:
“It’s good that you’re willing to take on the feedback of the people who are going to use it, and a range of people across the region as well, rather than put something out and nobody uses it.”~ a participant in one of the focus groups
“Many thanks for all your work on this, Noreen. It has been such a valuable learning experience working with you.”~ Dr Helen Joseph, Regional Early Years Transformation Programme Lead
“I echo Helen’s comments, thank you for all you have done to support us. We have really benefited from working with your team, your expertise in this area of work has been invaluable in helping us to develop some really useful tools and techniques in a relatively short space of time. I hope I can do justice to ensuring these documents remain actively used and help shape how professionals engage with families throughout their work.”~ Sarah Ostler, Early Years and Flying Start Manager, Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council
Photo by Dakota Corbin on Unsplash