What is Family Integrated Care?
Family Integrated Care is a philosophy of care that ensures parents are true partners in care for their baby.
Becoming a new parent can be wonderful, but it can also be a daunting experience especially if your baby requires a little extra help.
If your baby is very tiny, early or sick, they may require complex, highly technical medical and nursing care. It is important to remember that there are still things you can do to help your baby. When your baby becomes more stable there will be opportunities to become more involved in their care.
We will encourage and support you to do the right things at the right time for your baby. We are available to support and guide you through those challenging times offering practical and emotional support.
The aim of the neonatal team within the Centre for Newborn Care in Leeds is to ensure that parents are supported, educated and empowered to provide as much care for their baby as they are able.
It is well known that families play a vital role in their baby’s care and development. We want to help parents feel connected to their baby in a consistent and nurturing environment whilst providing the loving comfort and support that their baby needs. Parents can help to provide positive experiences for their baby, such as skin to skin care, which is a way of creating meaningful interactions and help your baby to feel secure and loved.
Close, loving relationships are known to be beneficial for maternal mood, breast milk production and the developing brain of your baby.
Aims and goals for Family Integrated Care:
The goal of Family Integrated Care, or FICare, is to support parents in becoming empowered, engaged, comfortable and confident in caring for their baby.It aims to create a partnership and collaboration between the neonatal team
and parents. This is achieved by providing staff education, parent education, considerations for the neonatal environment and an offer of psychological support.
What are the benefits?
Evidence shows that FICare babies have fewer infections, are more likely to breastfeed, have better weight gain, have improvements in some areas of development and go home sooner. Families feel more confident on discharge and need less support from health professionals.
Encouraging parents to spend as much time with their baby possible ensures that parents can gain the knowledge, skills and confidence to care for their baby.
Parental Involvement
Family Integrated Care encourages you to be with your baby as much as you are able. Watching your baby helps you to see how they communicate – their reactions can guide us to understand what they need. Parents are encouraged to provide active care for their baby as this will help you to recognise and respond to your baby’s cues.
Each weekday, there will be a teaching session from a member of the multidisciplinary team (MDT) offering additional support in the care of your baby. These sessions will focus on a particular aspect of the special care journey.
Sessions include welcome to neonates, developmental care, feeding, preparation for home and many more. In addition to this there will also be bedside teaching where the nurse can give you support in caregiving activities. Your baby will receive an All About Me Board which will act as a visual tool for all members of the team, it will indicate where you are in your journey and reflect conversations and tasks already completed. Please ask your nurse for information regarding this.
Support Resources
Here in Leeds, we have access to several resources that will support you throughout your Neonatal Journey.
Follow the link below to take you to the “Our Neonatal Journey” this is a parent package developed by the Yorkshire and Humber Neonatal Network with the aim of supporting and empowering parents and carers to work in partnership with the neonatal team.
https://www.networks.nhs.uk/groups/yorkshire-humber-neonatal-families/documents/folders/169
You may feel overwhelmed, frightened, traumatised, anxious, and exhausted. Please remember these are all normal and we have support available for you to help with all these feelings.
Parking
A permit can be issued for each family on the unit to allow free parking in certain areas, please ask you nurse for details of this.
Access onto the unit
To support the Fi Care Philosophy of parents being partners in care Parent Access Cards are now available for families to use to get in and out of the unit. This has reduced parent anxiety due to reduced wait time at the door.
Badger Diaries
https://www.badgernotes.net/Register/Register
This is an app whereby the staff can send pictures, videos and messages to you during those time you are unable to be on the ward. Please ask your nurse to help set up an account for you and your baby.
Multidisciplinary Team
The Family Care Team help families to ensure they have all the correct support in place to make their neonatal journey as comforting as possible. They provide a listening ear and signpost families to internal and external support streams where necessary. The team also provide education sessions for parents to help build their confidence in caring for their baby and being true partners in care. As well as providing staff education and so much more.
Play Leaders help support the babies, families and siblings in several ways. They support the developmental care of the babies by working alongside the wider MDT. They also provide sibling sessions to allow siblings time away from the cot side to participate in activities.
The units have a dedicated team of Psychologists who are available cross city to offer support for families.
Volunteers – Our veteran parent volunteers have lived experience of life on a neonatal unit, they are a non-clinical member of the team that families can talk to they are able to signpost to external support groups. We also have access to a Volunteer from Dads Matter, he can support dads who may like somebody to speak to; ask your nurse for further information. You can also self-refer for this support.
Projects
Over the years the Family Care Team have led on a variety of projects to support the families on the unit such as:
Corridors of Courage – The corridors are displayed both at the LGI and SJUH and show a babies born at different gestations and with some with conditions often seen with in new born babies. Each poster and has a photo of the baby when they were on the neonatal unit, their gestation a little bit about them with a new image of them recently and their current age.
“Unexpected Beginnings” is a podcast created by two veteran parents Kerry and Caroline. The podcast looks at the highs and lows of life on the neonatal unit.
https://unexpected-beginnings.captivate.fm
Kangaroo Mirrors – These were designed to support parents during skin to skin, they enable parents to still look at their babies face via a mirror during skin-to-skin care to help build close and loving relationships and release oxytocin.
All projects have been funded by the Leeds Hospitals Charities.
Leeds Centre for Newborn Care
St. James’s University Hospital
Level 5 Gledhow Wing, Beckett Street, Leeds LS7 9TF
Tel: 0113 206 9101
Leeds General Infirmary
C Floor Clarendon Wing, Leeds LS1 3EX
Tel: 0113 392 7443
