Building Connection from the Ground Up: A Supportive Approach to Reorienting Young Parents Toward Infant Attachment
Young pregnant and parenting people often navigate competing relational and emotional needs—seeking belonging, identity, and healing—while the developmental needs of their infants remain less visible. This practice showcase explores how community-driven, placebased group interventions can reorient young parents toward infant attachment and bonding, even when this is not their initial focus. Drawing on cross-service partnerships in perinatal and infant mental health, we present Building Blocks: a co-designed, six-week mother–infant group developed in response to low engagement in traditional parenting and therapeutic supports. Created alongside young mothers with lived experience, the program provides an accessible, non-judgemental entry point that centres voice, agency, and relational safety. Through facilitated infant-led play, infant massage, and “serve and return” interactions, participants are supported to explore their own and their infant’s experiences in real time. Ongoing participant feedback has shaped program delivery, strengthening its responsiveness and relevance. Outcomes have included increased uptake of further supports, improved reflective functioning, reduced intrusive caregiving behaviours, and enhanced mother–infant connection. Using case reflections, we will highlight common engagement challenges, including service disengagement, diffuse caregiving systems, and infants being positioned as sources of emotional fulfilment. We demonstrate how partnership-based, community-embedded approaches create flexible entry points and build trust over time. Participants will engage in experiential activities and reflective discussion, gaining practical tools to scaffold insight, strengthen connection, and centre infant needs while honouring young parents’ broader social and developmental contexts. This work reflects what it takes for young parents to thrive: trusted relationships, responsive support, and communities that hold both parent and infant in mind.
Presenter: Lucy Coffey