Trafford Infant Parent Service (TIPS)

We work with families to support early relationships between parents and infants, and difficulties can be felt by everyone.   Once we have understood together where the struggles are it might be that we link parents with Trafford Talking Therapies if a separate space is needed for parents’ own well-being.  We often link with this service and families can have support from both services at the same time if this is needed.

Our service works confidentially with all families who refer for help. There may be times when it is important to share information with other services such as your GP, midwife and/or health visitor. We will always ask your permission to share information which is necessary. Although, if it is important to keep you safe, this may be done without your permission. This will only be shared on a strict need to know basis.

The support we offer focuses on the infant-parent relationship and social emotional wellbeing of the infant. Both you and your baby together are fundamental to our appointments and developing work together.  Sometimes we may decide together that on occasion it would be helpful to meet without baby present but this will be part of our ongoing discussion with you.

Session times may vary based on the infant and parent needs, though usually around an hour. The number of sessions you will receive will vary from family to family. You may have several sessions including a triage call, assessment and therapeutic intervention sessions.

Support is individual to each family we work with, so we may work alongside various other services. This can be discussed and explored at the initial referral, triage, and assessment stage as it is dependent on the needs of your family and type of support offered from other services.

TIPS accepts referrals from the point of conception until the child’s 2^nd birthday. If your child is over 24 months you should speak with your health visitor or GP for guidance and signposting.

Yes, sessions can be joined by anyone important to the infant, especially at the assessment stage, and further sessions will be planned in discussion with main carer.

Play is often at the centre of our sessions, along with compassion informed approaches and really thinking about the experiences that parents bring in to parenting which become part of the relationship with the baby. We work with parents to understand the baby’s ‘voice’ and we hold in mind the different developmental stages of children.  This all helps to support the relationship between parent and baby to stay on the right track so that parents feel more sure they are getting it right for their child and generally things feel more manageable.

TIPS is a free to access service.

You are welcome to contact us again and we can think together about what would be the best next steps for you and your family.

TIPS can offer appointments with support from interpreters for various languages upon request. We work from the main building at Oriel Court in Sale, Stretford and Partington family hubs. All of these buildings offer access to ground floor rooms with space for pushchairs and wheelchair access. If there are challenges with accessing these buildings, please advise upon referral/first contact so we can work together to consider how to help you to meet with us.