Preparing for Life

PFL is a multi-component programme, involving:  

• monthly home visitations delivered from pregnancy to school entry, with 45-60 minutes duration each visit;  
• five sessions of antenatal sessions during pregnancy, with 60 minutes duration per session delivered to groups of 2-3 families;  
• weekly breastfeeding support, with 60-90 minutes duration each, delivered to groups of five to six mothers; 
• five sessions of the baby massage programme with infants from four weeks old, delivered by home visitors in a group format or individual basis; and 
• eight sessions of a Triple P programme, 120 minutes duration each session. delivered when the child is between two and three years of age to groups of six to eight families. 

The core activity in the intervention is the Home Visit in which the Home Visitor engages with the parent and child and provides information and support.  There are three key elements to the home visit which take place from pregnancy to school entry.

• Tip sheets: Home Visitors provide age appropriate information to families across a number of key domains of child development and provide coaching to support parents to implement positive parenting practices.
• Goals and Aspirations: Home Visitors establish a positive coaching and mentoring relationship with families and support parents to identify and work towards goals for themselves and their children.
  
• Interagency Work: Home Visitors support parents to access additional supports in the community.

The practitioner who delivers this programme is a PFL mentor with NGF 7/8 qualifications, that can come from a variety of professional backgrounds including education, social care, youth studies, psychology, and early childcare and education.   

• Home Visitors who deliver this programme receive 7 days of training as well as additional training on the Triple P Positive Parenting programme by core Triple P staff.
• Booster training is not required.

• Supervision takes 2h per month and is continuously delivered over 5 years.
• External supervisors must have a thorough grounding in PFL Home Visiting as a prerequisite and then receive appropriate training on Supervision, Coaching and Mentoring etc (approx. 3- 4 days depending on experience).

• Supervision includes the following three strands: (a) individual supervision, (b) local team meetings and (c) peer support and case review.  All supervision is underpinned by the PFL Practice Principles:

  •            Family Capabilities

  •            Relationship Based Family Partnership

  •            Parallel Process

  •            Mutual Competence

  •            Reflective Practice

Programme fidelity is maintained through the following processes: 

• Training manual 
• Other printed material 
• Fidelity monitoring 
• Face-to-face training

Supervision includes all of the above and is based on the Tony Morrison model. Also incorporating Erikson Centre FAN model to model attunement and responsive practices. Discussing cases, recruitment processes, criteria, support with individual families. There is a mixture of individual and group supervision which look at different aspects of practice.

Yes, there is a licence required to run this programme.

• The programme aims to support the creation of nurturing home environments that facilitate a child's (and their families') wellbeing by enhancing parent child interactions, parenting skills, parental self-efficacy, and parents goals and aspirations for themselves, their children and their family. 
  

This is achieved through three intervention strands:

1. Discussion between the Home Visitor and family: The programme has developed a suite of evidence informed tip sheets based on the best available information. These are distributed across 7 key domains and cover the entire period of the programme from pregnancy to school entry: Nutrition; Rest and routine; Parental support; Social and emotional development; Safety and Supervision; Cognitive development; Transition to school.  Additional Resource and Developmental Packs are also provided to families as educational incentives to encourage milestones e.g., play mat to support parent child interaction, encourage tummy time; books to encourage a more language rich environment.
2. A structured process in which families/parents’ goals and aspirations are explored and captured as well as considering ways to remove potential and actual barriers. The goals may be supported within PFL or may require collaboration with other programmes or services as per the interagency work process below. The Home Visitor and the family will explore options resulting in a the family setting initial goals which are achievable within the next year without losing sight of more long-term aspirations.  Working together the Home Visitor and family explore the steps that may be required to reach these goals considering the resources available to the family and identify specific actions to reach the goal.  The Home Visitor will check in regularly with the family on their goals and actions and provide any necessary support and/or referrals. Successes are celebrated and progress to outstanding goals is reviewed and the plans are updated.  Any barriers experienced by the family that may benefit from further discussion and potentially problem solving.
3. PFL Home Visiting recognises there are numerous benefits available to Home Visitors and  families by working in collaboration with other services and agencies.  This includes increasing the range of supports available for families, building on the knowledge and expertise of other professionals about areas such as education, employment, personal development, mental health, addiction, financial support, legal advice etc. This allows Home Visitors to support families in a holistic way and to receive a support that best meets their aspirations and needs (as required). The level of support required differs across families and therefore there are different ways that this can be provided depending on the level of involvement by the Home Visitor: Signposting, Referrals, Advocacy, Interagency meetings.
   The Home Visitor will also support the engagement of families in the other key elements offered i.e., Antenatal Education: Breastfeeding Education and Support; Baby Massage; Evidence Based Parenting Programmes. Ideally Home Visitors are trained in Baby Massage and Evidence Based Parenting so that they can deliver these aspects on a 1-1 basis as required as well as complementing groups attended by the family

• In the short term, parents will experience greater wellbeing, parental self-efficacy, and enhanced understanding about how they can support their child’s development; children will experience a more nurturing home environment and interactions with their parents that support their wellbeing and likelihood to reach their developmental milestones. 
• In the longer term, children will be school ready, and the children (and their families) will flourish and thrive in lifelong outcomes. 

Niall Sexton

Programme Manager, Preparing for Life

[email protected]

Phone: +353 (0) 1 877-1509 / Mobile: +355 (0) 87 700-3492

Northside Partnership, Bell Building, Link Road, Darndale, Dublin 17, D17 EO27

www.preparingforlife.ie

https://geary.ucd.ie/preparingforlife/