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The Early Intervention Program works with families where there is a pregnancy or child under 3 years and parents are finding  parenthood challenging. We provide one-to-one support, home-visiting and support groups.

Our aim is to help people break free of harmful patterns from previous generations.  We encourage parents to develop a supportive, nurturing and protective relationship with their infant.

We intervene as early as possible in the child's life, preferably during pregnancy, in order to reduce and prevent disturbances in the developing parent-infant relationship.

The Early Intervention Program acknowledges the challenges for families attempting to break free of the effects of previous generations’ parenting.  We address these challenges by providing long term home or centre based psychotherapy until a child reaches the age of 3 years. This gives time and space to allow a strong relationship between the parent and infant to develop that differs from the parent's own childhood experiences.

This program also has a specialist worker for families where one or both parents are affected by a long-term mental illness.

Antenatal and postnatal programs

A group program has been developed to offer ongoing support for mothers starting in pregnancy. Women are referred antenatally through the Royal Hospital for Women. Our groups aim to create a space for women to reflect, to relate to their baby, and speak about the reality of their experience, which is often painfully at odds with the idealised expectation of pregnancy and motherhood.

The group program incorporates antenatal support groups which focus on the emotional process that occurs during pregnancy, in particular the third trimester. Women who attend the antenatal support group are offered 20 weeks of postnatal group programs which include a baby massage group and a mother-baby group. Women can attend either or both of these groups but must complete the baby massage group prior to joining the mother-baby group. The aim of these two groups is to support mothers to develop a nurturing relationship with their infant by developing an understanding of the infant's needs.