What is MECSH?
- Parenting programme developed in Australia
- Pronounced ‘MESH’
- A parenting programme to support and help families through the transition to parenthood from pregnancy to child age 2 years
- Tailored programme to meet the needs of you and your family
- To improve outcomes for our families by working from a prevention and early intervention framework
- The MECSH service is voluntary and if you change your mind at any time you can withdraw from the programme
- Your health visitor will help you create a plan for you and your baby’s needs
- Depending on when you join the MECSH programme, your health visitor will visit up to 3 times in your pregnancy, weekly until your child is 6 weeks, fortnightly from 6-12 weeks. The contacts then decrease in frequency but visits continue until your child celebrates their second birthday.
- Each visit will last around 1 hour
Why MECSH?
The MECSH programme draws together the best available evidence on the importance of:
- the early years
- children’s health and development
- the types of support parents need
- parent-infant interaction
- supporting families to establish the foundations of a positive life outcome for their children.
If you decide to work with your health visitor under the MECSH programme, your health visitor will tailor each visit around enhancing you and your family’s health and wellbeing needs by:
- Supporting you and your child’s health and wellbeing:
- including observation and support of child
- maternal and family health and development
- parent-infant interaction
- health education
- Supporting you to be future oriented and aspirational
- for you, your child and family
- Supporting family and social relationships
- within your extended family
- with the local community
- with other health and social services.
- Additional support in response to need
- including: children’s centres, SALT, physiotherapy, social care, housing, mental health, child care and dental care.
- Child development and parent education
- MECSH is a structured program of parent education about child development and you will be introduced to “Learning to Communicate” (LtC) information which you can access throughout the programme – your health visitor will share the link with you. www.learningtocommunicate.com.au
MECSH-UK Lewisham is specifically designed for Lewisham families and is underpinned by the Australian developed Maternal Early Childhood Sustained Nurse Home-visiting (MECSH) programme. The MECSH programme was introduced in Lewisham in 2015 and since its introduction we have seen some very positive outcomes for families. Families will complete questionnaires at set times during the programme where we can measure success or identify areas of support for the family.
If you are not offered the MECSH service by your health visitor, do not worry. All of our health visitors are trained in MECSH and implement tips from the programme throughout all of their work.
MECSH Questionnaires
Your health visitor will ask you to complete both of the below questionnaires at 6 weeks, 1 and 2 years:
Your Patient Enablement Instrument (PEI) online data collection survey link is:
https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/3362694/PEI-Lewisham
Your Parent Satisfaction Questionnaire (PSQ) online data collection survey link is:
https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/3362741/PSQ-Lewisham
Your Adapt self management questionnaire (ASM) online data collection survey link is:
