Following years of hard work and planning and thanks to funding from the Big Lottery Fund, the Best Beginnings' Baby Buddy app formally launched on November 19th 2014.

The day was full of TV and radio interviews, culminating in a launch evening and celebration at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists with young parents, senior civil servants, representatives of endorsing organisations, Directors and CEOs of many other charities, funders and front-line workers from across the country.  

Huge thanks to all our speakers (listed below) and to everyone who took part in the two short films we showed on the night (shown below). The evening was testimony to the power of collaboration to drive change and enable parents of all backgrounds to give their children the best start.


On the night, I was delighted to announce that the Department of Health has become an endorsing organisation of Baby Buddy. What follows is a quote of support from Dr Dan Poulter MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Health:

“I believe this app has real value in supporting parents to give their babies the best start in life. I am pleased to see how midwifery and health visiting teams across the country are using the Baby Buddy app with parents to help ‘make every contact count’.“I thanked the Department of Health and the other endorsing organisations of Baby Buddy for taking the time to quality assure the content of the app both leading-up to its launch and as an ongoing process as we make more films and add more written content too.


See the bottom of this webpage for some lovely quotes of support about Baby Buddy from Cathy Warwick, Nat Sloane and Alan Maryon-Davis or read all the quotes from supporters of the app here.

On the launch night Best Beginnings was proud to launch our 
new website for Baby Buddy which provides access to all the text and film content in the app to parents who don't have smartphone.

Also announced on the evening were details about the full academic evaluation of Baby Buddy; after a rigorous tendering and interview process, Best Beginnings have appointed a consortium of universities to carry out the full academic evaluation of the app. They are: 

  • Dr Toity Deave, University of the West of England (Lead)

  • Professor Jane Coad, Coventry University

  • Dr Raghu Lingam, Newcastle University

  • Professor Sally Kendall, University of Hertfordshire

  • Professor Crispin Day, King’s College London


On the night, Best Beginnings thanked Big Lottery Fund, the Tedworth Charitable Trust, the Royal College of Midwives and the Guys and St Thomas’ Charity for providing the funds to develop and evaluate Baby Buddy. We also thanked the app developers Despark for all their hard work on the app and Heirloom Media who are actively filming to create 140+ new films to be included in Baby Buddy.

Heartfelt thanks go to the excellent speakers on the night - videos of the speakers are at the bottom of this page.

  • Chair of Trustees, Professor Alan Maryon-Davis

  • Dr David Richmond, President of the RCOG

  • Polly Toynbee, President of the CPHVA and journalist

  • Nat Sloane, England Chair of the Big Lottery Fund

  • Nicolle James, a young mother and user of Baby Buddy

  • Dr Ann Hoskins, Deputy Director Health and Wellbeing, Healthy People Division, Public Health England

  • Dr Alain Gregoire, Chair of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance

  • Emilie-Mai MacCormack, a young mother and user of the app

  • Gina Miller, Founder of Miller Philanthropy, who generously pledged to match any donations that were made at the event

  • Professor Cathy Warwick, CEO of the RCM

  • Professor Mitch Blair, Officer for Health Promotion at the RCPCH 

  • Parents and midwives featured in the two films shown at the launch (below). The first film is about the app and the second film shows how it is being integrated into antenatal and postnatal service delivery 

 

 

There was a lot of activity on Twitter around the event and you can still join in the party online. Please look out for us at the following:

  • Our Twitter handle @babybuddyapp

  • The hashtag #babybuddy
     

Below are some photos from the launch night and some quotes of support for Baby Buddy.

A few days later Baby Buddy was officially launched in Blackpool and the app was featured on Granada TV. To read about the Blackpool launch and watch the Granada film click here.



Me and two wonderful young Mums Emilie & Nicolle

 


Me, Actor Andy Serkis and his wife, Actres Lorraine Ashbourne with the lovely Freiya and her Mum 
 



Dr Ranj, NHS Doctor, Medical Broadcaster & Presenter and RCPCH Rep of the Baby Buddy project.


 

Me with Emilie-Mai and Kirsty two fantastic young mothers and Kirsty's young man, Teigan

To see more photos from the event, please visit our Flickr page.








The launch celebration was a fantastic opportunity to celebrate how far Baby Buddy has come on its journey. Also, it was an evening to highlight the fact that updating and enhancing the app is an ongoing, iterative process.  There are still plenty of opportunities to get involved, whether you are a parent, parent-to-be or a professional looking to use Baby Buddy in your day-to-day practice. Baby Buddy is the culmination of a lot of hard work by very many people.  Baby Buddy is evolving and we hope that you will play a part in shaping its future.