AQW 7887/16-21

Ms Paula Bradshaw
Alliance Party
South Belfast

Tabled Date: 24/11/2016
Answered On Date: 08/12/2016
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Health for an update on the status of the Infant Mental Health Strategy being developed by the Public Health Agency.

Answer:

The Infant Mental Health Framework was issued and disseminated widely from April 2016 and can be accessed at http://pha.site/IMHF.

The Framework represents a commitment by the health and social care sector, as well as academic, research, voluntary and community organisations, to improve interventions from the ante-natal period through to children aged 3 years old. It has three key priorities:

to ensure that commissioners and policy makers are fully informed of the latest evidence and interventions;

to provide practitioners across health, social care and education disciplines with the skills to support parents and children in the development of positive infant mental health; and

to encourage service development to ensure effective delivery of evidence based interventions for families with children where there are significant developmental risks.

Since its publication in April, governance arrangements have been established including a multi-agency Implementation Group to oversee the delivery of the framework. The Implementation Group had its first meeting June 2016 and is scheduled to meet again in January 2017.