4th February 2005 
The Child Health Information Service Project (CHISP) in the Health Service Executive – South Eastern Area is rolling out an information pack to support parents and main carers of small babies in the South Tipperary Community Care Area during the month of February.  This information support package called  ‘Caring for your Baby: Birth to Six Months Old’ will be given out to all new parents by their public health nurse during the first visit. 

The pilot project set out to explore the information needs of parents and carers from ante-natal to the pre-school era in relation to their child’s health and well-being, from the parents perspective, with a view to developing user friendly, quality information and systems to meet these needs.  During the development of this information pack, there was a wide consultative process with service providers, parents-to-be, parents, and main carers of children up to pre-school age.   

The CHISP steering team developed this first package consisting of a booklet and audio compact disc (CD) as a result of that research.  The information pack was then launched in South Tipperary and piloted on all parents of new babies over the months of July and August 2004.  An evaluation of the information pack by parents and professionals was very positive in the context of being a very useful to invaluable:

Support in meeting parents’ broad child health information needs.

Health promoting resource tool for professionals when working in partnership with parents.

Edel Conway, CHISP Project Officer says, “The birth of a baby is an exciting and challenging time for all.  If you have just had a baby, this is the booklet and audio CD for you!  It contains valuable information to help parents care for themselves and their baby over the first six months of life.  This booklet and CD will help parents to deal with the every day concerns of parenting.  It will also point parents in the direction of further information and support.  A telephone list at the back of the booklet gives local area contact details on child health and related support services.  The booklet comes with an audio CD inside the back cover so that parents can to listen to the information as well as, or instead of reading it.  The feedback from the parents who piloted the pack in South Tipperary is that the child health information, given in both written and audio CD formats, allowed them to increase their knowledge capacity on aspects of parenting an infant.  As such, parents felt more confident when caring for their child and better able to access child health services when they needed them ”. 

The CHISP steering team is currently developing further information packs on other key stages of parenting in the pre-school years.  These packs will be piloted and launched over the coming year or so.

Mr. Seamus Moore, A/ Regional Manager welcomed the roll out of this quality, client focused initiative, which is in keeping with current strategies in the health, and social care arenas.  He thanked everyone who was involved in developing this information resource, particularly the parents who contributed to both the initial development and evaluation of this support pack.  This booklet is also available on the Health Service Executive- South Eastern Area website on www.sehb.ie