Public health nursing team achieves gold award in baby friendly initiative

Torbay’s public health nursing team has been accredited with the gold award by UNICEF’s Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI).

This award makes the team only the second community service in the South West to achieve this level.

The UNICEF BFI is a global campaign by the World Health Organisation and United Nations’ children’s fund. It recognises that implementing best practice in health and wider community children’s services is crucial to successful breast feeding.

The infant feeding team in Torbay have put in place best practices and worked hard with the wider team and colleagues to successfully deliver a gold accredited service.

Vashti Wilks, Service Manager and Professional Lead for 0 to 19 Torbay and public health nursing, said: “We are very proud of this accomplishment and what this means for our families locally. The assessor was extremely complimentary about our innovation, and the results of the audits, for both parents and staff, demonstrated a culture of kindness threaded throughout the service.

“I would like to thank my infant feeding colleagues for developing and maintaining a high standard of service, the wider team for their instrumental support, and our community guardian Dr Lincoln Sargeant for assisting us with the process.”

Lincoln Sargeant, Director of Public Health at Torbay Council, said: “The achievement of UNICEF’s Baby Friendly Initiative gold award is a fantastic accolade for Torbay’s public health nursing team.

“Through our Family Hubs we run weekly feeding and support groups to help new breast-feeding mothers and their partners to connect with our trained infant feeding peer supporters and other parents. It is initiatives such as this that help Torbay to be a child friendly place right from birth.”

“As community Baby Friendly Guardian, I am very proud of the great work being done by the team and together with partners remain committed to ensuring that every child in Torbay has the best start in life.”

The public health nursing team first began their journey with BFI in 2010 when they were awarded stage 1. They followed this up with stage 2 in 2015, before achieving stage 3 in 2019 and again in 2022 when they were reaccredited following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The gold award, or Achieving Sustainability standard, is designed to help embed the high standard of baby friendly care awarded to date into workplaces over the long term.

Services need to show leadership and a culture that promotes and fosters BFI standards, as well as the ability to monitor, support, develop and maintain these.

Additional funding for the 0 to 19 Torbay services from the Family Hub and Start for Life programmes of work have helped make this possible.