The Centre for Emotional Health

Our mission is to promote an approach to life and relationships that equips and supports families and communities to be emotionally healthy.

Programme Summary

The Welcome to the World programme is an 8-week group for parents expecting a baby. Parents attend the group from approximately 24 weeks of pregnancy. Topics include empathy and loving attentiveness, infant brain development, healthy eating choices, breast-feeding, infant care, managing stress and difficult feelings, promoting self-esteem and confidence, and the couple relationship.
The programme focuses on the following areas:

• Giving an opportunity to expectant parents to explore their roots, traditions, hopes and fears for the future
• Developing strong communication between parents by sharing experiences and ideas
• Increasing parent's reflective functioning and understanding of their baby: how he/she develops before and after birth, their physical and emotional needs, the importance of attunement, attachment and empathy
• Increasing parents' understanding of their own emotional health and the need to nurture themselves to provide the best opportunities for the baby to grow and flourish
• Enabling parents to think about their future as parents, a couple, a family
• Increasing parents' understanding of the benefits of breastfeeding and the practical tasks of caring for a new baby