2021-03-31-accounts

BABY WEEK 3RD ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS 2020

CHARITY NO: 1178324

Baby Week Trustees Charity & Finance / Aims and Objectives United Nations Global Sustainable Outcomes - Baby Week Online: 16[th] 22[nd] November 2020

BABY WEEK TRUSTEES

Active: Sadiya Salim Sally Goodwin Mills John May Sonia Saraiva Debra Gedge Retired: Ann Pemberton Nick Frost

The trustees showed good involvement with meetings and guidance on the week during a pandemic. Three online meetings were held

CHARITY & FINANCE CIO CHARITY NUMBER 1178324

• Accounts: April 2020 – March 2021

• Balance brought forward April 2020 £1795.20

• Lloyds Banking plc,.

• Account Number 34709860 Sort No: 30-90-92

• Income £1000

• Expenditure: £714.75

• Plus balance brought forward1£1795.30

• Balance £2080.45

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

Baby Week is an early years initiative and annual event which aims to bring together and celebrate cross sector services amongst maternity, children’s and families specialists in Leeds. It is an adaptation of Semana do Bebe (UNICEF 2010) Brazil with the aim to raise awareness of the baby’s important growth and development stages both mentally and physically within the first 1001 days of life.

Baby Week’s four aims:

▪ Increasing awareness of, and access to, supportive services

▪ Raising awareness of, and engagement with the relevant local strategies

and the wider evidence-base for early intervention

▪ Encouraging and promoting the messages around how to improve outcomes during pregnancy and for the first two years of life

▪ Celebrating success and good practice, in relation to supporting all children to have the best start in life.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES CONTINUED

• The aims and objectives of Baby Week Leeds are inextricably linked with Leeds City Council’s, in terms of values and objectives, as well as of a number of evidence based which have a role in the of Week. As a approach strategies played key shaping Baby

• charity, Baby Week is also aligned with national strategies such as Best Beginnings reports.

• This year the Children’s Commission published the Best beginnings in the Early Years Proposal. This report focuses on a new early years guarantee to give all children in England the best start in life. This directly corresponds to the Baby Week and Leeds City Council ambition of giving all babies and children the ‘best start’ in life. Best Beginnings is a charity that ‘works to inform and of all and the of to them the empower parents backgrounds during pregnancy early stages parenthood, working give

• knowledge and confidence to look after their mental and physical health and to give their children the best start in life’. Like Baby Week, Best Beginnings partners with parents, professionals across multiple sectors and other charities. Best Beginnings have developed their core service by the free NHS-approved Baby Buddy app, which has been promoted and shared by Baby Week Leeds. The Best Beginnings in Early Years stipulates that there are 5 foundations for a happy and healthy life; 1. Loving, nurturing relationships with parents and carers; 2. A safe home free from stress and adversity; 3. The right help to develop good language and other cognitive skills; 4. Support to manage behaviour and regulate their emotions; 5. Good physical and mental health and access to healthcare. Baby Week Leeds supports these foundations by partnering with Best Beginnings and adopting very similar philosophes which underpin our work.

NATIONAL AND LOCAL DRIVERS

National Drivers:

• National Maternity Review: Better Births Postnatal care – better support for breastfeeding

• The Marmot Report – Fair Society, Healthy Lives Objective 1: Giving every child the best start in life

• NHS Long Term Plan – A Strong Start in Life for Children and Young People

• Public Health Outcomes Framework outlines two high level indicators: Outcome 1: Increased healthy life expectancy

Outcome 2: Reduced differences in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy between communities

LOCAL DRIVERS

• Leeds Health and Wellbeing Plan 2016-2021

• One of the twelve priority areas is ‘a child friendly city and the best start in life’, with a reduction in infant mortality and child obesity.

• Leeds Best Start Plan 2015-2020

• The vision of the Best Start Plan is that every baby in Leeds will get the best start in life. Outcome 1 is healthy mothers and healthy babies, with a priority to improve mother and baby nutrition and an indicator on breastfeeding rates at initiation and 6- 8 weeks.

• Children and Young People Plan 2018-2023

• This is a framework for Leeds to be the best place for children and young people to grow up and to be recognised as a child friendly city. One of the eleven priorities is ‘support families to give the children the best start in life’, with an indicator around infant mortality rates.

• Leeds Breastfeeding Plan 2016-2021

• The vision of the Breastfeeding Plan is that mothers are empowered to breastfeed for as long as they wish and parents are supported to have close and loving relationships with their baby. The significant value of breastfeeding and early relationship building are recognised for the immediate and future health and well-being of mother and baby. One of the principles includes provision of information, support and help breastfeeding in hospital and community settings for pregnant women/families.

LOCAL DRIVERS CONTINUED

Leeds Child Healthy Weight Plan 2016-21

• The Plan aims for every child in Leeds to be a healthy weight. One of the outcomes is for all children to have the best start to achieve a healthy weight, with a priority of breastfeeding and an indicator of breastfeeding initiation and continuation rates.

• Leeds Maternity Strategy 2015-20

• One of the nine priorities is ‘preparation for parenthood’ including the need for support and accurate and consistent advice for breastfeeding families whenever it is needed in the first few weeks, including when they go home.

CHANGES TO THE STRUCTURE OF BABY WEEK

Baby Week 2020 marked the fifth anniversary Leeds Baby Week. As this is the fifth year of Baby Week, Baby Week aligned with 5 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Baby week was held from the 9[th] -15[th] of November 2020. The theme was ‘Stay Safe- Stay Connected’. Due to Coronavirus, the week looked and felt different to the previous 4 years. Most Baby Week 2020 events were online (due to the second national lockdown), in the form of webinars, live streams and online taster sessions. Ultimately, Coronavirus and national lockdown presented an opportunity to approach Baby Week from a different angle Consequently, the online events reached an even wider audience, due to being accessible to everyone with an internet connection. However, there were some unfortunate last minute changes/cancellations to planned in person events, due to the previously unanticipated lockdown. Although our partners were able to adapt and mitigate the effect of lockdown on Baby Week 2020.

STAY SAFE, STAY CONNECTED

As a charity, we also helped mitigate the effects of Coronavirus lockdown on babies, children and their families through our ‘Stay Safe, Stay Connected’ ethos. We strived to enable parents and professionals to build connections with each other, our partners and the local community. Ultimately, we continued to work with the public to raise awareness of services, advocate for early intervention, promote strategies that improve outcomes during pregnancy and in early years, and celebrate previous success. This was linked with our shared ambition with Leeds City Council to make Leeds a child friendly city. We love babies and truly want what is best for them, our strategy for promoting their wellbeing just had to adapt digitally in these challenging and changing times.

CLIMATE CHANGE AND TREE PLANTING

Climate Change and Tree Planting

Baby Week 2020 focused on climate change. There was also an additional focus on responding to the pandemic by ensuring the inclusion of diverse communities, in addition to celebrating success stories in front of a wider audience. In 2020 we unveiled the ‘Baby Week Forest’. We are currently still working with the Leeds City Councils’ Woodland Creation Initiative, Child Friendly Leeds, White Rose Energy and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS to create the Baby Week Forest. It is our proud ambition to plant a tree for every baby born in 2020! The planting of the Baby Week forest links in with our adopted UN Sustainable Development Goals: climate action and sustainable cities and communities. Climate change affects us all and we want to do our part to help to combat it through our sustainable Baby Week initiatives. Which is why we hope to plant an extra 2,000-3,000 trees! Parents and partners can learn how to get involved in this by visiting our website. We plan to plant the trees after lockdown during the optimal tree planting season.

TASTER SESSION

 Taster session overview

 We ran several fun free taster sessions on a diverse range of topics including: ​Baby Moo - Taster Session with Moo Music; Mixed Moo - Taster Session with Moo Music; Baby Basics First Aid Taster by Daisy First Aid; Pre & Post Natal Mama & Me Fitness Class Taster with PJs gym; Baby Massage Free Taster Session with MammasCan; Antenatal Class Free Taster Session with MammasCan; Pre & Post Natal Mama & Me Fitness Class Taster; Hypnobirthing Taster Session with Family Support; Understanding your new baby - Taster Session with Family Dynamic and Postpartum: Because becoming a Mother doesn’t end at Childbirth taster session with Wetherby Reflexology. Thank you to all our new partners for hosting these informative suggested events!

• We engaged a wider audience of parents and carers by promoting through these links.

• As this year marks the 5[th] year of Baby Week Leeds we have adopted 5 of the 17 United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals: good health and well-being, reduced inequality, sustainable cities and communities, climate action and no poverty. Throughout Baby Week continuously discussed and promoted the UN goals we are aligned with. The themes and messages associated with our adopted goals are:

• Goal 1 of 17: No Poverty. We want to help all families to give their babies the best start in life by tackling poverty and by promoting the Child Poverty Strategy.

• Goal 3 of 17: Good Health and Wellbeing. We aim to ensure that all babies have a healthy start in life and maintain a good standard of health and well-being in their formative years. Also, we will help safeguard the health and mental wellbeing of their parents.

• .

• Goal 10 of 17: Reduced Inequalities We will work hard to reduce health and education inequalities in Leeds linked to socioeconomic background, race, and disability. It is our aim to continue to have an inclusive Baby Week and celebrate familial diversity within Leeds.

• Goal 11 of 17: Sustainable Cities and Communities. We want to provide families with equal opportunities to access services and engage with relevant baby and child friendly intervention strategies in Leeds.

• Goal 13 of 17: Climate Action. We aim to facilitate eco-friendly strategies that benefit families, the local community and the environment. For example; by planting the Baby Week Forest and by promoting breastfeeding and it’s link to climate change.

DEAR FUTURE YOU

 We promoted the new initiative ‘Dear Future You’ in a Baby Week digital campaign with Women Friendly Leeds this year, culminating in the all-day Dear Future You - Digital Campaign on Saturday 14 November. Dear Future You is a beautiful heart-warming initiative where new and expectant mums write letters to their babies, discussing their hopes and dreams for their future children. Dear Future you began in lockdown with mothers writing letters to their children detailing their thoughts, fears and desires for themselves and for their children. We plan for some mums to read their letters during our online events. This project proudly demonstrates the deep and personal journey’s mothers have gone through during lockdown, and celebrates the profound love they have for their children. It helped share experiences with other mums and provided a platform for feedback on services.

 “Life changed forever the moment you entered the world, but the global pandemic continues and brings with it more rules, guidelines, advice and challenges…Whilst mummy and daddy get to spend more precious time with you, your family are yet to meet you, we are back in isolation and not able to do all the things we had planned. We have been for walks and people stop to look at you and all you can see are their eyes. I wonder if you will grow up thinking wearing masks is ‘normal’? - Mother writing a letter to her child for Dear Future You

ATTENDEES AT THE OPENING EVENT

Our Opening Event Welcome to Baby Week Leeds 2020: Family friendly LIVE Stream, was . extremely successful

We had 900 views on Facebook. This means our opening was seen by many more people than it ordinarily would have been. Our founder Lucy Potter and some of our favourite partners including; Made with Music, Rainbow Factory, Mumbler and Boom Chikka Boom. Baby Week Leeds provided viewers with an extremely fun digital welcome to the week! Being able to record and broadcast our opening event on social media has been incredibly beneficial. It has allowed people who didn’t attend the event at the time to watch it at a later date. Due to this triumph, we plan to record other Baby Week events in the future and continue to have more online events.

ATTENDEES AT THE ONLINE CONFERENCE

• Our Best Start | Experiences during Covid-19 | Maternity Conference had over 130 attendees!

 The Conference was held on Zoom and welcomed professionals from many backgrounds, as well as anyone who has an interest in supporting the best start ambition for all children. The topics we discussed included: Mental health & wellbeing, local and national experiences during Covid-19, brain development, early years and maternal health inequalities for black women. We also heard from Oxford Brain Story, Best Beginning and Women Friendly Leeds. There was a heavy focus on perinatal mental health and lockdown, which was greatly appreciated by the attendees. The presentation on the Helping Babies Breathe Project was also greatly enjoyed by attendees, with comments praising the international link Baby Week Leeds partners have with Pakistan. We had many positive comments praising how these sensitive topics were handled also.

BABY WEEK TESTIMONIALS

• “First time being part of Baby Week Leeds and I've thoroughly enjoyed it. Fantastic speakers and very informative. Great way of connecting with others too and learning about how other organizations have been working differently during the pandemic. Fantastic to see health inequalities being raised and featured in this –

• event”. Balvinder, Conference guest

• “Brilliant afternoon, I’ve enjoyed all of this year’s Baby Week conference, so informative and interesting! Than ks.”- Kate, Conference guest

• “The mental health aspect has been really good and the link to Pakistan was great.”

• – JAirey, Conference guest

• “The session was great…I got some good feedback and a new customer from it so it was definitely worth doing. It was a shame that a lot of the people who signed up didn't then come to the session - I'm not sure how you could avoid this happening in future though. Thank you for letting me be a part of it. Looking forward to next year!”- Jess from Jess Evans yoga on her Leeds Baby Week Postnatal Yoga session

CHALLENGING SUBJECTS

• One of the main negatives mentioned in presentations was the adverse effect on women’s birthing experience, babies and their mental health . Reasons for this has been attributed to:

• Lack of continuity of care; Partners not being able to attend scans; No in person antenatal/ midwife appointments; Being left alone during birth; Not being allowed visitors after their birth; Increased mental health difficulties, depression and anxiety

• Another theme that appeared in both the Conference and our Webinar was racial bias in maternity and neonatal services. This bias affects BAME women but affects black women the most significantly. Heather Nelson, CEO of the Black Health Initiative highlighted how black women are 5 times more likely to die during childbirth. At Baby Week, we have aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goal reducing inequalities. Therefore, we need to work with the BME community to diminish the bias and reduce the inequalities and inequities they face.

• Heather suggested the following things as positive actions to help reduce the perinatal health inequalities suffered by black women: review Maternal Strategic Policies and Procedures, host post-partum reviews within 6 weeks and include Black Professionals within the review systems.

MATERNITY VOICES PARTNERSHIP

We shared feedback from birthing women regarding their anxieties around giving birth under the covid restrictions

CONFERENCE GUEST SECTOR

Conference Guest Sectors

----- Start of picture text -----
OTHER/ NOT LISTED
CHILDREN’S CENTRE …
THERAPISTS
BUSINESS OWNERS/PRIVATE
THIRD SECTOR WORKERS OR …
TEACHER, PROFESSOR AND …
FAMILY OUTREACH AND …
OTHER NHS
DOCTORS AND NURSES
MIDWIVES AND DOULAS
LOCAL GOVERNMENT …
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
----- End of picture text -----

----- Start of picture text -----
Leeds City Council
56
Bradford Council
1
Children’s Centres
12
Third sector
26
Other
15
Other Education
8
University of Leeds
8
Private sector business
18
NHS 45
----- End of picture text -----

CONFERENCE ANALYTICS

Conference Analytics

At Baby Week, we hope to work with our partners in the NHS and the third sector to help improve access to services, provide mental health support and continue to raise awareness of problems in maternal/perinatal care caused by Covid-19.

There was also a slight technical glitch during the Conference, which resulted in a member of the CFL Team being accidentally removed from one of the break out rooms. CFL Team members were acting as group facilitators, so this caused a slight disruption but was quickly remedied. In future years we will be more adept with the software and will work with our tech partners to overcome technical problems during online events. – one breakout session at a time- guests be patient waiting in main room. Two hosts, one doing 1-3 and the other doing 4-5.

CONFERENCE ANALYTICS CONTINUED

• 190 people in total registered for the Conference, meaning some people may not have attended. We need to develop a strategy for ensuring we have less non-attendees. Although, it is difficult to monitor with the Zoom software.

 As well as professionals from Leeds, we had one attendee from Bradford, Oxford and Southampton, as well as two from York and Merseyside. This demonstrates the national reach and partnership building we have achieved through Baby Week Leeds. Professionals from many different sectors attended the conference including; Leeds City Council, the NHS, third sector and the private sector.

• Bradford hosted their 3[rd] Baby Week

• Cheshire and Merseyside presented their first Baby Week

ASK THE EXPERTS

• At our ‘Ask the experts! Discuss all things maternity, birth and beyond Webinar’ we submitted questions from parents, pregnant women and new mothers to our panel of experts. Our experts came from various different backgrounds, such as the NHS, NHS midwives and the third sector. Subsequent to our findings from the 2020 Conference, most of the questions submitted to the panel were related to Government restrictions put on perinatal care due to Covid-19.

 Overwhelmingly, responses provided by women highlighted that these restrictions have had a disproportionate negative effect on expectant and new mothers. Mental health difficulties have proven to be a significant concern, including increases in instances of Post-natal Depression and PTSD attributed to experiences related to Covid-19 maternity restrictions. Therefore, we need to work closely with our NHS partners and third sector partners to raise awareness of these issues and help to address them.

ASK THE EXPERTS - QUESTIONS

• The following questions were submitted to our panel:

• 1 .How can midwives ensure experiences for women birthing in MAC (experiences of MAC Maternity Assessment Centre) have been addressed and improved since the beginning of lockdown?

• 1. How are midwives /GP's helping with the six week check in terms of PTSD due to Covid appointments are very short.
• 1. To professionals across the board -what steps are taking to address racial bias in maternity and neonatal services?
• 1. When will Health visiting support resume?
• 1. Are the websites re medication in pregnancy and breastfeeding being published on the Baby Week website?
• 1. Again continuity of care... do we actually know how many women are experiencing an acceptable level of continuity? i.e. not seeing a different midwife every time during their pregnancy?
• 1. Could midwives ask about mental health every time they see/speak to women? Rather than relying on women to bring it up?
• 1. How can I access antenatal classes via Zoom?

• MP Hilary Benn closed the event and thanked all attendees, professionals for being fantastic during lockdown and parents to continue to share their thoughts and work with us.

• Following this session, we will share our report, ideas and suggestions by attendees of Baby Week events and concerns with the relevant boards.

NEXT STEPS

• Over the next 5 years we also want to put a special focus on reducing maternal and perinatal health inequalities for vulnerable groups. The relatively poorer outcomes for these groups are discussed in the Leeds Maternity Health Needs Assessment. We also want to put more emphasis on improving outcomes for families with Special Educational Needs (SEND), Social Emotional and Mental Health Needs (SEMH) and mental health difficulties.

• We plan to ensure that Baby Week continues to engage people from a broad range of backgrounds – in particular from foster families, kinship families and care leavers with children. These plans both link in with our adopted UN goals of no poverty, reduced inequalities and sustainable cities and communities.

• We will provide feedback to relevant partners via ‘you said we did’ in early 2021, when we launch this 5 year report and plan on a page. In 2021 we will host an LRPC event to share our toolkit event with Bradford, Cheshire & Merseyside speaking to share Baby Week in more cities across the UK.

• Baby Week Leeds 2021 will link in with Children & Families and focus on social care, restorative practice, Domestic Violence and early help and supporting families as a whole.

PARTNERSHIP AND THANKS

• We would like to offer a big thank you to all of our partners who have supported Baby Week and who have diligently worked with us over the last 5 years. Especially those partners who have worked with us consistently to help make Leeds a child friendly city, enabling Baby Week to become assessable to parents across Leeds and West Yorkshire.

• This year we have experienced the unprecedented consequences of COVID-19, which resulted in Baby Week 2020 becoming a mostly digital event. The second national lockdown also led to last minute changes events that were originally planned to be in person. Therefore, we would like to thank our partners for facilitating digital Baby Week by running online events such as live streams, webinars, taster sessions and online classes.

• We have all had to adapt to this new digital world and the flexibility of our partners has made it possible for Baby Week to make this digital transition. Some of our partners have managed to plan socially distanced in person events for Baby Week 2020. Subsequently, we would like to thank all of them for their dedication and for their courage. Baby Week 2020 may have looked different to that of previous years, however it is thanks our partners commitment that parents across Leeds have been able to ‘Stay Safe and Stay Connected’.

IN PARTICULAR WE WOULD LIKE TO GIVE THANKS TO

• Child Friendly Leeds and Leeds City Council

• The Leeds and York Partnership NHS Trust and NHS Leeds Teaching Hospitals

• The Crowne Plaza Hotel

• 50 Things to do Before You’re 5

• The University of Leeds

• Leeds Beckett University

• Rainbow Factory

• Leeds Dads

• White Rose Shopping Centre

• Victoria Leeds

• North Leeds Mumbler

• South Leeds Mumbler

• Leeds City Kirkgate Market

• Leeds Libraries

• Women Friendly Leeds

• The Little Gym

• Boom Chikka Boom