Rochdale Borough Council has been officially recognised for its ongoing efforts to support parents with infant feeding and building closer relationships with their babies.
This recognition follows the council’s successful completion of the first 2 of 3 stages in UNICEF’s widely respected Baby Friendly accreditation programme and its dedicated multiagency working between the borough’s family hubs and local NHS professionals to implement set standards.
A recent report by the organisation highlighted the borough’s ‘positive approach’ towards implementing its programme and it had ‘consistently displayed enthusiasm and commitment towards providing an effective training programme’.
UNICEF also praised the council’s leadership team ‘for the enthusiasm shown, to embed the standards throughout the service’ particularly its plans to change the culture around infant feeding and close and loving relationships across the wider authority.
The programme, which provides a roadmap for public services to enhance their care offer to families, is based on a series of evidence-based standards across maternity, health visiting, community and hospital-based children’s services.
These standards include such things as supporting pregnant women to understand the benefits of breastfeeding and early relationships, and the impact these have on the health and wellbeing of both mother and baby.
They also involve encouraging mothers to continue breastfeeding for as long as they wish and helping parents to make informed decisions when introducing food or fluids other than breastmilk.
According to recent data, more than 54 per cent of mums in the borough currently breastfeed their child from birth – an increase of 16 per cent since 2020.
Councillor Rachel Massey, portfolio holder for children’s services and education, said:
“We are delighted to receive the first 2 stages of our UNICEF accreditation, as it strongly reflects the huge amount of work and support that our local services already provide to families.
“From bump, birth and beyond, we are committed to supporting parents in every step of their journey and that starts with providing the very basics, including information on infant feeding as we help them to give their babies the best health and development from birth.
“We look forward to continuing this work in implementing these standards and in achieving our full accreditation with UNICEF as soon as we can.”
By achieving these first 2 stages, Rochdale Borough Council has demonstrated a strong foundation for implementing UNICEF’s standards across its workforce, with over 160 practitioners already trained across the borough’s family hubs.
The council also successfully delivers an education programme to empower staff to have the skills and knowledge needed to support infant feeding and nurture parent-infant relationships.
More widely than this, the council has made a formal commitment in no longer promoting breastmilk substitutes, bottles, teats, or dummies within its buildings or by staff.
To achieve full accreditation, the council must now undergo a final assessment in 12 months’ time, when UNICEF will speak to pregnant women and new mothers to check in on how the standards are being implemented in practice.
If successful, the council can then apply for a Gold award and Achieving Sustainability.