Celebrating UNICEF UK Baby Friendly reaccreditation
This week, colleagues from our health visiting and family hubs teams are celebrating thanks to their reaccreditation by the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative.
This milestone reflects our commitment to supporting families, nurturing strong parent-baby relationships and giving every child the best possible start in life. The team was commended for:
- Highly skilled staff: 90 per cent of staff demonstrated advanced skills in helping mothers with breastfeeding.
- Positive parent feedback: 97 per cent of parents reported receiving the support they needed to bond with their baby during antenatal care.
- Updated training: Refreshed materials have helped maintain high standards of care.
- Improved access: Families now have more ways to connect with us online and in person.
This accreditation follows hard work to improve services, including introducing Ready for Baby antenatal sessions, expanding our Infant Feeding Team and enhancing the Let’s Chat text messaging service, where parents can ask a question and get trusted NHS advice from their local Health Visiting team quickly and easily. New videos featuring local breastfeeding families and an animation to help families feed their baby responsively were commended by the team.
Pictured right (Kathleen Tullett, Janet Farrington and Lorraine Murray, members of the BFI Project Team)
To achieve reaccreditation, parents and colleagues were interviewed and internal audits were completed to demonstrate our evidence-based, compassionate care in supporting breastfeeding, early bonding and responsive feeding.
Anne Woods, UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Assessor, commended the team’s efforts:
“Significant improvements have been made and we recognise the effort and commitment this has taken both by the infant feeding lead and team and the staff as a whole.”
Our Health Visiting Service is now working towards the prestigious Baby Friendly Gold Award, which recognises sustained excellence. We’ll continue to implement the ‘Nourishing Our Next Generation 2024–2029’ infant feeding strategy, co-produced with Kent County Council, to empower parents with informed choices and make sure they receive the support they need.
Visit Kent Baby for more information and support.
