Parent and infant relationship (PAIR) team

Nurturing loving connections between babies and their primary caregivers from conception to 2 years.

Who are we?

We are a small specialist team of Clinical Psychologists and Child & Adolescent Psychotherapists. Our team will aim to promote a loving secure relationship between primary caregivers’ and their baby, which lays positive foundation for health and well-being for the rest of the child’s life.

Who we support?

PAIR provides specialist support from conception to 2 years. We work with primary caregivers, babies and families in Devon where:

There are significant concerns about the attachment relationship between the baby and their caregiver(s).
There are concerns that the above difficulties are impacting the baby’s social and emotional development or may do so in future without additional support.

As a service we are committed to supporting dads, LGBTQ+ parents/caregivers, neurodiverse parents, young parents and families that might find traditional services more difficult to access.

What difficulties might we help with?

We understand that pregnancy and having a baby is life changing. This time can come with intense and overwhelming feelings. For many different reasons, we know that the development of the relationship between baby and caregivers can be interrupted.

PAIR may be able to support you if you are struggling to connect to your baby or are concerned about the relationship for a variety of reasons including:

A difficult conception, pregnancy or birth
Your own experience of being parented and early experiences of relationships
Trauma
Separation
Feeling overwhelmed, low or anxious
Previous losses or significant losses during pregnancy
NICU experience
Fears or worries about difficult feelings you may have towards your baby
Other concerns you may have about your relationship with your baby

What do we do?

We provide a range of interventions depending on the needs of the family and baby, including:

Psychoeducation
Signposting to partner agencies and resources
Consultation with other professionals to think together about the challenges a family is facing
Shorter term support to make sense of the difficulties
Medium-longer term specialist therapeutic interventions such as Parent-Infant Psychotherapy

What to expect when working with us?

We will typically meet with you and your baby together. We will start by spending time with you, understanding the difficulties you are struggling with. We will discuss how we are going to work together and what the focus of this work will be.

There will be space to think about how you feel and what is in your mind in relation to your baby.

There will also be times when we think about how your baby is feeling and what your baby might be trying to tell you through his/ her sounds and body movements.

We may also work alongside other professionals who might be supporting you such as health visitors, midwives, social workers or peri-natal teams.