Representatives from Royal Colleges, charities, universities and other organisations across the country met at the RCPCH in London on 17 June for a Stakeholder Day for Best Beginnings’ Baby Buddy app project. Coming just before Baby Buddy was made available to hundreds of users in a closed beta test, the Stakeholder Day was a fantastic opportunity for around twenty-five experts from a range of different backgrounds to try out a working version of the new app and share their input.

The Stakeholder Day started off with an overview of the project and a tour of the new app. Stakeholders responded warmly to Baby Buddy’s new look and feel, describing it as “very different – in a positive way.” Others commented that they found the new version easy and intuitive to use, and were looking forward to using Baby Buddy in their work with young parents.  “It’s going to tick all the boxes,” one stakeholder said.

The film partners for the Baby Buddy app presented their plan for creating the new short videos that will sit within the app. After viewing examples of informational films on pregnancy, birth and baby care, stakeholders discussed the merits of different approaches. The film-makers gave an impressive demonstration of how it could be possible to present topics in an informal documentary style without losing any informational value, and stakeholders agreed that this would be most engaging for Baby Buddy’s young audience and match the tone of the rest of the app. Further discussion served to round out the list of topics that the new films will cover.

The day closed with a presentation by Lalita Taylor, who is working on getting the word out about Baby Buddy. The stakeholders connected their wide-ranging experience with Lalita’s approach and together they generated some fantastic ideas to help us reach out to the young mums who would particularly benefit from the app.

The Stakeholder Day was a wonderful opportunity to work collaboratively with respected professionals from different disciplines and we are very grateful to all who attended. The combined expertise of our stakeholders has always been the essential force in guiding the Baby Buddy’s development. The new app’s features were carefully planned with their input and this day allowed our stakeholders both to see their ideas made real in the beta version and to refine the future direction of the app.

Dr. Ranj Singh attended the Stakeholder Day. You can read his thoughts on Baby Buddy here.