Thousands more families to benefit as Royal Foundation-backed programme to promote babies’ wellbeing expands to eight more areas

The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood and the Institute of Health Visiting (iHV) have today, Friday 24th January 2025, confirmed the expansion of the trial of a tool used by health visitors within routine checks to promote infant wellbeing, to eight new sites this year.

The tool, known internationally as the Alarm Distress Baby Scale (ADBB), focuses on a baby’s social behaviours such as eye contact, facial expression, vocalisation, and activity levels to help practitioners and families better understand the ways babies express their feelings. Providing support at this critical time, when babies’ brains are developing faster than at any other time in their lives, can have a life-long impact.

Christian Guy, Executive Director of The Centre for Early Childhood, said: “We know that warm, loving, responsive interactions with those closest to them during the earliest weeks and months of a baby’s life are crucial in promoting positive brain development.

“Health visitors do such a vital job in our communities.  I am delighted that we are now able to give more teams across the UK the support they need to help thousands of families to better understand their babies and build nurturing relationships, laying the strongest possible foundations for all that is to come in the years that follow.”

The Princess of Wales saw health visitors in Denmark using the tool on a visit there in 2022 and The Centre for Early Childhood then worked with the iHV and Oxford University to test it in the UK.

Phase one explored the feasibility of implementing a modified version of the tool (m-ADBB) within health visitors’ routine 6-8-week checks with families and had overwhelmingly positive results.

Health visitors involved in phase one reported that the new training and tool, which required minimal additional time and could be embedded into routine activities with families, enabled them:

• To have more meaningful conversations with parents and carers about the emotional wellbeing of their baby;
• To promote positive parent-infant interactions, attachment, and bonding; and
• To identify those babies and families in need of greater support during this critical period of development.

The second phase, funded by a £210,000 grant from the Centre for Early Childhood, will build upon the findings of the first and will focus on the impact of the tool, and how it is experienced by parents. The evaluation will also look at whether more babies receive the additional support they need as a result of the tool helping health visitors to identify concerns as early as possible.

Alison Morton, Chief Executive of the Institute of Health Visiting said:

“We are delighted to have the continued support from the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood to deliver the second phase of this exciting programme of work. As we know, babies can’t talk, but there is significant evidence that their early experiences influence their future outcomes.

“The expansion of the use of the modified ADBB tool in a wider range of health visiting services will allow us to consider its future implementation and sustainability, and ensure more families get the right support and babies can thrive.”

Phase two will run until March 2026 in the following NHS Trusts:

• Ayrshire and Arran Health Board, Scotland
• Cwm Taf Morgannwg Health Board, Wales
• Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare
• Humber Teaching NHS Foundation Trust, England
• Northern Health and Social Care Trust, Northern Ireland
• Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust -Doncaster, England
• Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust -North Lincs, England
• South Warwickshire NHS Foundation Trust, England

The areas were chosen because they expressed an interest in delivering the measure and had the systems and processes in place to support practitioners to undertake the training and embed the tool into their practice.

During phase two, iHV will be working with local sites – and others outside the trial – to consider how to embed, grow and sustain use of the tool after the pilot, if it is shown to be effective.