ForWhen: Striving for excellence in perinatal and infant mental health care

About this work

Monitoring progress; strengthening practice

ForWhen is a national perinatal and infant mental health care-navigation phone line that connects parents around Australia to mental health services and supports in their local area. It is designed for parents who are experiencing moderate to severe mental health concerns during pregnancy and until the infant is 12 months of age. The service is funded by the Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care, and aims to ensure parents experience seamless service delivery, feel heard and supported, and are connected to services that best match their needs.

We worked with ForWhen to co-design a Practice Framework, outlining the relational practices of the clinical navigators and a Continuous Practice Improvement (CPI) system to monitor progress towards expected outcomes and to provide opportunities to strengthen practice.

We applied our PracticeWorks® methodology to design and deliver these services.

What we did

Co-design and ongoing support

As part of this project we:

• Undertook an outcomes mapping process to identify the theory of change and to clarify the targeted outcomes for the service.

• Co-designed a practice model articulating the evidence-based navigator practices that contribute towards service outcomes.

• Co-designed a CPI approach, including the identification of indicators and measures, the development of an interactive data dashboard and resources to support the collection and use of data.

• Provide ongoing support for ForWhen facilitators using CPI data to support decision-making regarding practice.

What we found

Making a difference for parents and infants

Defining the targeted outcomes has enabled ForWhen to monitor progress towards these outcomes to track if the service is meeting the needs of new and expectant parents. These outcomes have contributed to aspects measured as part of the service evaluation being undertaken by UNSW.

The development of the Practice Framework has provided guidance to navigators on using evidence-based methods that support work with often distressed new and expectant parents. The benefits of the CPI system include having real-time data about who the service is reaching, the progress towards outcomes for parents and the impact on service improvement adjustments to parent outcomes.

Currently, preliminary results of the evaluation are showing very positive tracking towards parent and infant outcomes.