The Association for Infant Mental Health (AIMH (UK)) was founded in 1996 as a not-for-profit-organisation. AIMH(UK) has become a registered charity (registered 17th August 2017) and has been recognised as an organisation of national importance. AIMH (UK) is an affiliate of the World Association for Infant Mental Health (WAIMH)
AIMH(UK) is an interdiscisplinary organisation that promotes education,research and the study of the effects of mental, emotional, and social development during infancy.
AIMH (UK) is a voice for infants by acting as an advocate on their behalf.
AIMH (UK) supports professionals involved in the delivery of care to families during the perinatal period and offers access to research based information for them and for parents on its website.
The organisation helps to educate the general public; healthcare professionals; practitioners and policy makers, through on-line training, workshops, conferences and our website that also has a dedicated Resources page for parents/families. We continue to influence policy, research and practice, by peer reviews and contributions to select committees and other policy forums.
AIMH (UK) is supported by an Executive Committee of dedicated, interdisciplinary, perinatal and infant mental health professionals, researchers, authors and teachers.
Our main objectives are:
To raise the profile of infant mental health and raise awareness about the importance of sensitive, nurturing environments in the early years and to provide a forum for parents/families and professionals to have access to up-to-date knowledge and evidence-based interventions that work in practice
To continue to build our research resources archive and keep it accessible to our members.
To expand our reach to gain wider public recognition mainly through the development of our on-line resources and training programmes and the development of local hubs thoughout the UK.
To grow the charity over the next five years to enable it to become the national leader for the promotion of infant mental health, for parents/families and professionals, and to be recognised for its actions that stand for excellence, quality and relevance in infant mental health.
To continue to advance the study of infant mental health. This includes the support and education of healthcare practitioners in their work with infants and their families.This is achieved via, on-line training, quarterly clinical workshops, an annual conference and the dissemination to members of up-to-date reports, papers and studies, through a dedicated website.
We have introduced a dedicated Parents Resources page to the website. Here parents/families can register free for current and topical information researched by our Parents Resources sub-committee. in addition a series of the popular 'Getting to know Your Baby' Videos, to promote infant mental health, has been released for both parents and practitioners to access, free, from the AIMH UK website.
We are currently working on building up a community of practice through nine regional Infant Mental Health Hubs and will be offering an online platform for practitioners to communicate with colleagues who work locally. This will also allow members of a multi-disciplinary team to link up and develop local services.
We are developing an Infant Mental Health Competencies Framework with ITSIEY (International Training School in Infancy and Early Years) soon to be piloted. This will give early years practitioners recognition of their IMH experience through registration on the proposed AIMH UK Infant Mental Health Recognition Register (IMH RR).
We are working towards integrating the online tool 'Infant Mental Health Online' (IMHOL) from Warwick University to the AIMH UK website. Infant Mental Health Online (IMHOL) is the first standardised basic training in infant mental health in the United Kingdom for front line professionals who work with babies/children and their families.
We continue to participate in the development of policies that affect IMH at local and national level.
