'Beyond Baby Blue', our powerful drama which follows the story of a young mum's struggle with maternal mental health issues, was recognised this week at the prestigious Journal of Health Visiting Awards.

Rewarding excellence - mental health and innovation

The awards highlighted and rewarded excellence in evidenced-based health visiting in each of the Department of Health’s six high-impact areas for the early years. Myself and the wonderful team at Best Beginnings are proud to have won the Contribution to Mental Health and Attachment Award for promoting perinatal mental health, and the Innovation in Health Visiting Practice Award: recognising our impact on existing practice and our contribution to future health visiting practice.

This is amazing recognition for our team who have worked on the 'Beyond Baby Blue' drama, and we are all excited about the next stages of our 'Out of the Blue' films project. National professional awards such as these not only shine a light on the essential issues we are working to address, they also raise the profile and understanding of how health visiting is so crucially important.

Our fantastic maternal mental health team!

Well done to the team whose hard work and dedication to the maternal mental health project is invaluable:
- David King, Project Manager
- Barbara Jayson, Project Consultant
- Emma Whittaker, Researcher
- Chris Godwin, from White Boat TV our delivery partner and multi-award winning video communications agency.

Thanks must also go to the Burdett Trust and the Galvani Foundation for funding this crucial project to support perinatal mental health. Both understand the need to empower parents as well as support healthcare professionals to make the changes that are needed in perinatal mental health services. Our supporters understand that film is one of the most powerful tools we have to help achieve this. We are also very grateful to the many people involved in developing the drama, including the advisory and stakeholder groups, and parents who contributed.

Out of the Blue 

'Beyond Baby Blue' is part of our new 'Out of the Blue' films project, due to launch in June, which aims to raise awareness and reduce stigma around maternal mental health issues.  

2 in 10 women will suffer mental health issues during pregnancy and in the year after birth, and these vary from very mild to very serious.  'Out of the Blue' will support mums and dads, families and the professionals working with them to help recognise symptoms and encourage early help.

We have developed the films with parents, healthcare professionals, and the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, and you will be able to watch them on our website, on DVD in in our Baby Buddy app.

Follow the ‘Out of the Blue’ project @BestBMMH and the Journal of Health Visiting @JHealthVisiting

Women's mental health specialist Trudi Seneviratne talks about when to ask for help if you're not feeling right.