What can be learned from referrers’ experiences of using a parent-infant mental health pilot project for children under five?

This research project set out to explore what could be learned from the experiences of referrers who used a parent-infant mental health project for children under-five. My intention was to learn from the participants’ experiences to support the pilot project to evolve and improve the service for children, their parents and the infant mental health professionals who will refer in the future. For this qualitative study I gathered data from four participants who had referred to the pilot project and conducted semi-structured interviews online, due to the Covid19 restrictions at the time. I used an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) methodology as I felt was best suited to analyse how people make sense of their lived experiences. IPA is engaged in a double hermeneutic and the researcher has a dual role, which involves continual reflection to make sense of the participants’ thoughts who are themselves attempting to make sense of their own situations. After analysing the data, I organised my findings into three superordinate themes: the reasons for referring to the service; the experience of the service and the outcomes from referring to the service. This research found that the referrers viewed the pilot project as a valuable source of specialist information and that the process of consultation was cathartic and containing. However, there was a disparity in the pilot project's understanding of itself as a primarily consultation-based service and the participants' belief that direct and potentially long-term work would be offered to their patients after referral. This led to frustration for the referrers and their patients. Recommendations are made for practice and for future research.