NHS Change Day

As part of NHS Change Day we are asking parents and professionals working in the early years to download and use Best Beginnings' free, Department of Health endorsed Baby Buddy app.

Check out our NHS Change Day action and then please share it via by facebook, Twitter or email.

Find out how to download Baby Buddy here.

As part of NHS Change Day, two fantastic young mums, Emilie Mai and Nicolle have chosen to share their stories to inspire others and create positive changes for families and professionals.

Read Emilie Mai's story
Read Nicolle's story

We have created Baby Buddy to empower mothers to improve their health choices and well-being and help them maximise their baby's potential. As well as increasing knowledge and confidence and enhancing bonding and attachment, the app reinforces the importance of accessing local services.

Baby Buddy Launch in Lewisham

Best Beginnings is proud to be working across Lewisham to embed Baby Buddy into maternity and early years services to to enhance maternity experiences and increase and maximise contact points with health care professionals and help make every contact count.
As part of NHS Change Day a Lewisham Baby Buddy launch event is taking place on the 11th March. The event will officially launch Baby Buddy in the locality as well as Best Beginnings and Lewisham maternity & early years professionals pledge, to support at least 100 women in Lewisham to actively use Baby Buddy by the end of March and to have reached over 1000 women by the end of 2015.

We are delighted that Dr. Ranj (from CBeebies’ Get Well Soon, as well as Watchdog and This Morning) will be opening the event.
Download your invitation now!
Best Beginnings have also created a press release for our Change Day Campaign.

Baby Buddy Launch in Kingston

Best Beginnings is also delighted to be taking part in Kingston Hospitals NHS Change Day activities. Alison Baum and the Best Beginnings team will launch Baby Buddy and hold an interactive workshop for parents and multi-disciplinary professionals.
Download your invitation here.

Parent consultation is integral to the work of Best Beginnings. Here is short film with insights from young parents and professionals on how they think Best Beginnings can make a positive change.

Baby Buddy has been designed to be used by parents alone and also in appointments with professionals to help make every contact count. The app is endorsed by the Department of Health and also the Royal College of Midwives, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Community Practitioners and Health Visitors Association, and the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists. Baby Buddy complements and supports the work of all these professionals.

We are actively encouraging members of these organisations and indeed everyone who supports young families eg: in a professional capacity, and/or within the charitable or education sectors to download Baby Buddy and experience it as if you are a parent and to do this for a few weeks. This will give you vital insight into the functionality and content of Baby Buddy and also allow you to give us your feedback on the app.

Get your local services featured in Baby Buddy - for free

Bump Around and Baby Around is designed to help mums and mums-to-be find services nearby by searching on a map either of their current location (as determined by their phone’s GPS) or of a postcode that they have searched for. If they are looking for somewhere in particular they can narrow their search down by category of place.

Order Baby Buddy leaflets and posters

These leaflets have been designed to raise awareness and create opportunities for conversation in healthcare and community settings.

So far over 150,000 Baby Buddy leaflets and 9,000 Baby Buddy posters have been ordered for use around the country. In many areas the leaflets are being used in booking appointment letters. Areas which have ordered the resources include:

Tunbridge Wells (Kent), Thornton Heath (Surrey), Peterborough, Wolverhampton, Blackburn, Worthing, Luton, Burnley, Cosham (Hants), Birmingham, Northumberland, Middlesbrough, Gillingham (Kent), Isleworth (Middlesex), Harrow, Maldon (Essex), Durham, West London, Tipton (West Midlands), Shetland, Ampthill (Bedfordshire), South East London, Wigan, Chester, Prescot (Merseyside), Basildon (Essex), Blackpool, Slough, Petworth, Southend-on-Sea, Canterbury, Epsom and St Helier University Hospital (Kent), Accrington, Ipswich, Haywards Heath (West Sussex), Chandlers Ford (Hants), Ashington (Northumberland), Redhill (Surrey), Harrow, Hull, Choppington (Northumberland), Croydon, Southampton, Coventry, Blackburn, Orpington (Kent), Tonbridge (Kent), Swindon, Merseyside, Hornsey, Whitehaven (Cumbria), Spalding (Lincolnshire), Chertsey (Surrey), Newham, Barnsley, Kingston, Wigan, Cobham (Surrey), Leatherhead, Gateshead.

Embed Baby Buddy into care pathways in your locality

Best Beginnings is already working with local areas across the country to actively embed the app into care pathways. As part of this service we can provide training on how to use the app in practice with the parents you support, bespoke marketing materials and exclusive promotional items, social media sessions to help young mums become peer supporters and reports on how Baby Buddy is being used. Please email [email protected] if you’d like to find out more.

Baby Buddy reports – uptake, usage and feedback

Best Beginnings can create bespoke reports for localities on

the uptake and usage data of the Baby Buddy, including breakdown by age, socio-economic group and ethnicity
Usability/likability/self-reported self-efficacy data of users in your locality
Feedback from users on local services accessed through the app.

Email [email protected] to find out more about.

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 19 November 2014. Read about the fantastic Baby Buddy launch event at the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (including the list of endorsing organisations) and watch speeches from the night here.

To date over 22,000 people are using the Baby Buddy app with over 600 downloads happening every week.

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