Specialized Training for Postpartum Home Visitor Programs

Customized Onsite Training Done for Your Group!

Benefits of this training for your organization include:

  • Assurance that your staff and volunteers will identify those red flags waving BEFORE a crisis escalates
  • Enhanced ability of staff and volunteers to establish and maintain professional boundaries with clients
  • Reduction in supervisors’ time spent troubleshooting
  • Prevention of staff/volunteer burnout and high staff turnover
  • Overall reduction in liability for your organization
  • And last, but not least(!), increased base of knowledge and skills to make a significant positive difference for families served

Center for the Childbearing Year announces a NEW specialized three-part training program designed for home visitors, birth doulas, and other professionals who provide support to new moms and their families in the early weeks postpartum.

Postpartum Home Visits:
MotherBaby Care, Depression Screening,
Support Strategies & Boundary Setting

Facilitated by Patty Brennan

Part 1-Focus on the New Mother

Topics & Learner Objectives:

When Postpartum is Not Joyful

  • Differentiate the symptoms of “baby blues” from symptoms of postpartum depression.
  • Discuss how the “myths of motherhood” create unrealistic expectations for new mothers.
  • Define the difference between clinical depression or mood disorders and psychiatric emergencies.
  • Discuss the effects of untreated depression on the mother, baby, mother-infant bond, and family.
  • Practice presenting, administering, and scoring the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale.
  • List barriers to seeking treatment.
  • Practice techniques to help overcome the barriers and make an effective referral.
  • Identify concrete strategies for mobilizing support for depressed moms.

Significance of “The Birth Story”

  • List factors during birth that lead to uncomplicated postpartum recovery.
  • Summarize factors during birth that lead to complicated postpartum recovery.
  • Practice reflective listening techniques that validate the mother’s feelings about her birth.

Postpartum Recovery & Healing the New Mother

  • Establish a framework for understanding common physiological changes in the mother postpartum (What is happening? Why? What is normal?).
  • Identify simple comfort measures to aid recovery and healing.
  • List causes for concern that necessitate referral to a medical professional.

Part 2-Newborn Care, Facilitating Attachment, Easing the Transition, Creating a Postpartum Care Plan & the Meaning of Support

Topics & Learner Objectives:

Your Role as an Educator and the Meaning of Support

  • Identify the needs of adult learners.
  • List actions and attitudes that feel supportive.
  • List actions and attitudes that do not feel supportive.
  • Identify personal values and biases.
  • Discuss the meaning of nonjudgmental support.
  • Explain the importance of using accurate, evidence-based information.
  • Describe four different teaching methods home visitors/doulas can use with clients.

Newborn Care & Safety Basics

  • Describe common characteristics and needs of the newborn in the early postpartum period (What is happening? Why? What is normal?).
  • Describe the six states of consciousness of the newborn and implications for families.
  • Identify strategies for promoting bonding and attachment.
  • Demonstrate a variety of baby calming techniques.
  • Explain safety concerns related to newborns.
  • List causes for concern that necessitate referral to a medical professional.

Integrating the Newborn into the Family

  • Identify the needs of each of the following during the early weeks postpartum: mother, father/partner, and siblings.
  • Brainstorm strategies to help each person get their needs met.
  • Discuss a variety of special needs scenarios (e.g., premature babies newly home from the NICU, babies with health issues, families with multiples).
  • Create a postpartum care plan for the family (case studies).

Part 3-Boundaries & Other Challenges for Support Professionals Working with Families during the Childbearing Year

Topics & Learner Objectives:

All About Boundaries!

  • Brainstorm personal boundaries you have with clients, friends, family members, co-workers, strangers.
  • List eight indicators that a boundary problem exists.
  • Describe classic rescuing behavior.
  • Explore personal challenges that may make you susceptible to boundary issues with clients.
  • Practice tactics for maintaining boundaries when challenged.

Domestic Violence Awareness

  • Define domestic violence and describe the scope of the problem.
  • Identify signs of an abusive relationship.
  • Discuss barriers to leaving an abusive relationship.
  • List signs of a potentially lethal domestic relationship.
  • Describe appropriate responses when faced with a victim of an abusive relationship.

Staying Safe

  • Consider the relationship between boundaries and personal safety.
  • Describe the body language of a good victim.
  • Demonstrate non-victim body language.
  • Explain five principles of personal safety.
  • Discuss the value of training in self defense.
  • Identify the most vulnerable target areas on an attacker’s body.

Avoiding Burnout

  • Clarify the importance of bringing closure to the client/caregiver relationship.
  • Explore your “pie of time.”
  • Brainstorm strategies for nurturing yourself as well as you nurture others.
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Your Facilitator

Patty Brennan, author and CEO of Center for the Childbearing Year, has been an advocate for childbearing families for nearly 30 years as a childbirth educator, doula, doula trainer, and program administrator. She is a certified Birth and Postpartum Doula Trainer through DONA International and is on the faculty of Washtenaw Community College. Patty is a master educator, creating dynamic, interactive curricula designed to match the varied learning styles of adult learners. Every training is infused with passion and abundant energy.

As the founder/executive director of two nonprofit organizations, Doulas Care (1999-2007) and the new Doula Connection (2011), Patty has a thorough grasp of the challenges faced by home visitors, volunteer doulas, and mentoring programs. She understands what it means to be “in the trenches.” In her book, The Doula Business Guide–Creating a Successful MotherBaby Business (2010), Patty establishes her authoritative command of risk management principles and a wide range of issues related to professionalization of the doula’s role, as well as basic considerations for setting up a business. Patty has a Bachelor of Arts from Boston College. She earned a Black Belt in Tai Kwon Do in 2004 and has been training in the martial arts for the past eleven years.

Scheduling & Fees

This training can be customized to meet your group’s special needs and budget. Pick and choose among the learning objectives and I can give you a quote. Email Patty@center4cby.com or Call 734-663-1523 to get the conversation started.

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