The Together Service is an Infant-Parent Service which provides a universal offer to all families registered at a GP practice. A Clinical Psychologist provides support from planning a pregnancy through a child’s first year of life. The input is tailored to suit the family’s needs. It draws on various psychological models including attachment theory, infant-parent psychotherapy, compassion-focussed therapy and narrative approaches. The service was piloted in Manchester from January 2020-2021. This report updates on the five years since then, including the outreach work with homeless families that developed from the pilot.
There is a growing body of research around the importance of the first 1,001 days for babies (pregnancy to age two), the crucial role the parent-infant relationship plays and the impact that inequality has on this period of life and beyond.
The Together Service aims to provide support for families facing inequalities. The rationale is that placing this universal support in primary care reduces stigma, increases accessibility and reaches the underserved populations with the greatest need. This is in line with the NHS 10-year plan; moving from ‘hospital to community’, ‘sickness to prevention’ (NHS, 2019) and the ‘two triangle’ model (Hogg, 2024).
