How to Collaborate
Our Starting Well programme aims to ensure that children and babies born in Cheshire and Merseyside have the best possible start. We have five core programmes to determine issues and work on mitigating them:
Promoting healthy living
- Determining why initiation and maintenance rates for breastfeeding remain so poor and the most effective interventions to improve rates.
- Developing the evidence of efficacy for strategies and interventions that will have the greatest positive impact in pregnancy, childhood, among young people and families, specifically:
- To optimise nutrition
- To overcome obesity and improve diet
- To improve the adoption of physical activity
- To address substance misuse
Mitigating and preventing adversity
- Understanding the prenatal/perinatal contributors to premature birth, in order to reduce them and improve preterm child health outcomes
- Developing strategies to promote the importance and evaluate the uptake of vaccinations
- Developing strategies to identify and support early interventions for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), specifically to support front line staff and children and families
Tackling chronic inflammatory and infection related disorders
Developing and evaluating the evidence base to:
- Improve early referral, appropriate diagnosis and optimising management for children and young people with inflammatory conditions like arthritis and gastrointestinal disorders)
- Reduce the impact of respiratory disease for children and young people.
- Reduce the lifelong health implications of cardio-respiratory disorders, including preterm neonates
- Identify individuals at increased risk of developing chronic disorders, including cancer
Promoting positive mental health and wellbeing
Determining key interventions that will have the greatest positive impact on improving the mental health and psychological wellbeing in pregnancy, childhood and among young people and families to:
- Help manage stress and anxiety
- Address mental health issues
- Assess the impact of targeted early interventions in schools.
- Help to develop the evidence base to tackle the link between poor mental health and social deprivation
- Determine the most effective strategies to support the needs of children and young people with complex health care needs/disabilities and their parents
Implementing coordinated care
Developing effective co-ordinated care for improving the health outcomes in pregnancy and for children and young people by:
- Determining and evaluating the best methods to foster partnerships across health and social care
- Supporting the development and evaluation of a robust digital informatic platform and surveillance system
- Refining and evaluating early intervention support and education for those at risk
There are projects in the following research fields to get involved in:
- Obesity
- Mental health and wellbeing
- Prematurity
- Vaccinations
- Chronic conditions, diabetes etc
- Health inequalities across the life course
The Starting Well programme runs a variety of workshops throughout the year to establish and develop potential collaborations partnerships.
We would be very interested in hearing your ideas and thoughts regarding a potential collaboration. Please contact Dr Carrie Hunt, Programme Manager.
