Consultation and Collaboration

Perinatal Support Washington strives to build connections and develop partnerships with local
organizations across the state. We are a resource for training and consultation for your organization. Please contact us to discuss your organization’s specific needs!

Common topics include:

Training staff and providers on perinatal mental health:

Perinatal Mental Health Overview, 6.5 hours. Provides staff with a solid foundation of the spectrum of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs), which includes: understanding the risk factors and etiology for PMADs, impact on parent, child, family, and community, and screening.

Labor and Delivery staff. Understanding how anxiety and depression might show up in the delivery room and postpartum recovery, recognizing birth trauma and interventions to prevent/improve parents’ mental health response, and more.

Vicarious trauma for medical staff. Doctors and Registered Nurses need support to process their own emotions regarding traumatic experiences they witness.

Managing psychiatric medications during pregnancy, postpartum, and breastfeeding. Understanding medication needs and impact throughout pregnancy by trimester, how to talk about risk, understanding the other components to care (therapy, support groups, warm lines and how to make a referral).

Breastfeeding and perinatal mental health. Understanding how breastfeeding and perinatal mental health impact each other, how traumatic birth impacts breastfeeding, and best practices in supporting breastfeeding for parents experiencing PMADs.

Implementing perinatal mental health screening:

Choosing the appropriate screening tool for your clientele and staff,

Training staff on how to talk with parents about perinatal mental health topics,

Training staff to effectively introduce screening tool

Training staff to accurately give and score screening.

Implementation of new parent support groups:

Wondering what it takes to implement a new parent support group? We can help! For over 30 years we have helped local organizations create new parent support groups and have the resources to help you. Here are some of our offerings:

Consultation on starting a new parent group: where do we start, what do we need to know, and more.

Training group facilitators.

Ongoing consultation for facilitators: providing facilitators with clinical consultation with a licensed perinatal mental health specialist and an experienced group leader. Group and individual consultation available.

Hosted 3-hour stakeholders meeting to bring diverse providers together to discuss perinatal mental health, barriers to care, and gaps in services, and to provide networking with providers to improve referral pathways.

Facilitated screening of a documentary about perinatal mental health to engage the community and increase awareness and education.

Consultation, training, and support for local organizations on implementing new parent support groups. (Past and present collaborations)

CHI Franciscan WIC, Pierce County, WA. Training and consultation implementation of Mothers of Color Support Groups at their Lakewood and Parkland clinic sites.