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Who we are
Relationships are Everything!
Sometimes things can get in the way of you enjoying your relationship with your baby, such as depression, anxiety, a difficult birth, worries about your baby, or your own parenting experience and difficult events from the past. Having a baby can activate so many of our own insecurities and vulnerabilities as parents.
By offering specialist, therapeutic parent-infant mental health support during pregnancy and in the postnatal period – we can help parents to 'separate out' their own past and present struggles and issues, which without this specialist support, can have a huge impact on the parent-infant bond, relationship and mental health of both.
We believe that most parents want to be ‘the best possible parent they can be to their baby’ (and be a better parent than their own parents!). We want to support parents to build secure attachments and loving bonds with their babies, and go onto break tough negative life cycles which get in the way of what is the most important relationship – the parent infant relationship.
We provide easy to engage, non-judgemental parent-infant therapy and support, for pregnant women, new parents and their partners, who struggle with their emotional wellbeing, other vulnerabilities, and who have concerns about their bonding and relationship with their baby. We are a team of clinical psychologists parent infant therapists and multi-disciplinary professionals and volunteers who are passionate and committed to supporting parents in the Knowsley and Sefton communities.
Again, we are specialists in supporting parents/carers and infants with their mental health, emotional wellbeing and struggles from their babies and building happy, secure and loving relationships with their babies. Sessions are offered to families either in the family home or in the community.
Our service is for parents and carers in Knowsley who are pregnant or have a new born baby aged 0-3 months, who are struggling with their emotional wellbeing and/or struggling in their relationship with their baby.
We work in partnership with Liverpool Women’s Hospital and St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospital. We work closely with other health colleagues and care professionals to ensure families in Knowsley are fully supported.
Referrals can be made by any professional such as a health visitor, midwife, family nurse, GP, social worker, early help worker.
For information on how to refer in Halton, Southport and Forbmy, south Sefton, and Warrington, visit our GP and referrers sections.
We welcome telephone enquiries to discuss suitability prior to referral. Please call us on 0151 351 8801 if you would like to arrange this. Referrals can be sent to mcn-tr
In addition to the clinical support we provide to families, we offer specialist parent infant mental health training and consultation to multi agency professionals locally.
Gemma Docherty – Interim Team manager
Dr Lisa Marsland – Consultant clinical psychologist
Dr Kate Abbott – Clinical Psychologist
Clare Clark – Specialist Mental Health Practitioner
Michelle Hughes- Trainee Clinical Psychologist
Bente Boekhorst – CYP IAPT Trainee
Carol Ann Duggan – CYP IAPT Trainee
Gosia Barrow – Team Secretary
What the parents we work with have to say
