Breastfeeding Peer Support

Our peer support team is made up of our amazing Breastfeeding Peer Supporters who are overseen by a Breastfeeding Practitioner and coordinator.

You can find a peer supporter in our TorBaby feeding groups, Thriving Child and My developing baby groups and some community groups across the bay.

Information you can trust

We are here to support you, whatever your feeding journey may look like, one feed at a time, nurturing those early days and beyond.

We are here for you!

Your Midwife and Health Visitor will also help you with breastfeeding, if in doubt, please ask. You can contact us in many ways –

• Phone:  07500 952216 (Infant Feeding) or 0300 333 5352 (advice line)
• Email: publichealthnursing.torbay@nhs.net
• Social Media: facebook.com/NHSbreastfeedingtorbay and instagram.com/nhsinfantfeedingtorbay
• Torbay Family Hub App – chat: Just download the app and start chatting to us
• DadPad community groups: download the Torbay DadPad App, connect with other dads, ask questions and find advice and support.

Join our baby feed and nurture group and meet other parents, get information, advice and support from family hub staff and breastfeeding peer supporters. Once a month we offer our no rush to mush session so you can find out when your baby might be ready to start solids. We also talk about supporting early relationship building, returning to work and breastfeeding, finding the right bra and more.

• Support and Information: Our trained Infant Feeding peer supporters are here to help you.
• Social Interaction: Connect with other parents and share experiences.
• For All Ages: Whether you’re expecting a baby or have a little one, this group is for you.
• No Booking Required: Just drop in and feel welcome!

We look forward to welcoming new breastfeeding mothers and their partners each week. Come and enjoy a cuppa, chat, and a supportive community. See you there!

Check our what’s on pages for dates, times and venues, just search baby feeding group.

For information or support please contact us – 

• Infant Feeding phone: 07500 952216
• Social media, just search NHS Infant Feeding Torbay
• Infant Feeding clinic – every Wednesdays at the Beehive, Paignton and Thursday at St. Edmunds, Torquay; please book through the Advice Line, details below
• Baby Feeding Group – Monday’s and Wednesday’s check out the what’s on page for dates and times
• To see our specialist infant feeding lactation consultant Health Visitor, contact the advice line to make an appointment. Tel: 0300 333 5352 (Monday – Friday 9am to 5pm) or Email: publichealthnursing.torbay@nhs.net
• National Breastfeeding helpline – Breastfeeding information and support available 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Call 0300 100 0212 or chat via their website 

You can access online support and information through our infant feeding social media pages ‘NHS Infant Feeding Torbay’ or phone our Infant Feeding helpline 07500 952216.

DadPad provides information and support for new dads of infant feeding and more. You can download the Torbay App for free using the links below, 

• If you are using an Apple device, please click on the App Store button.
• If you are using an Android device, please click on the Google Play button.

A welcoming group where children aged 0-3 years can experience fun activities which help their physical and mental wellbeing. A space for your child to Thrive.

A weekly focus designed by you and supported by the 0 to 19 team of Community Nursery Nurses, Family Hub staff and breastfeeding peer supporters. No need to book, just drop in.

Click here to go to our what’s on pages for dates, times and where the sessions are running, just search Thriving Child

We know that breastfeeding has many benefits for parents, babies and families both in the short and longer term.

Torbay’s Family Hubs Infant Feeding Network
Torbay’s Family Hubs Infant Feeding network is a collaboration between healthcare and people with lived experience including parents and those working in the NHS, Action for Children, Torbay Local Authority, and the Torbay voluntary sector.

Infant Feeding in Torbay
Breastfeeding can be hard. Eight out of ten mums stop breastfeeding before they want to, and the UK has some of the lowest breastfeeding rates globally. We know the infant feeding responsibility does not sit with individual mothers and is a wider, more complex issue that involves the whole family, community and health systems.

Peer Support
A breastfeeding peer supporter is a volunteer who has breastfed or provided breast milk for their child and has completed a recognized training program to provide support to other breastfeeding mothers and families

Peer supporters are not health professionals or ‘breastfeeding experts’ but should be considered more of a knowledgeable friend.

Breastfeeding peer support aims to fill a gap by linking mothers who want to breastfeed to others who have personal experience and some training. Peer support is recommended by the World Health Organization (pdf) and forms part of UK NICE guidance on maternal and child nutrition and on routine postnatal care. The Unicef UK Baby Friendly Initiative standards require that additional support such as peer support is provided and that services work together to ensure that mothers can get additional help as needed.

Breastfeeding peer support can take many forms. Peer supporters all have lived experience of breastfeeding and have completed training in how to support others. They can support on the phone, on the maternity ward, at a face to face or walking group. It can be home visits, social media, online chat or email support. It can be about a specific feeding issue, a general chat with someone who has time to listen or a place to meet local mums and parents who are breastfeeding.

Groups focused on child development.

This is a weekly group for parents with their babies to attend and is based on offering specific advice and guidance for new mothers.

Each week there will be a theme focused around your child’s development run by the family hub staff with breastfeeding peer supporters on hand to offer additional support. Click on our What’s on pages for dates, times and venues. Just search My Developing Baby.

Peer Supporters are mentored by the Torbay Family Hub Breastfeeding Team in addition to our Peer Support Coordinator in Torbay. You can expect to receive regular support and supervision when carrying out your volunteer role including a comprehensive induction before you start.

If you are interested or would like to find out more about breastfeeding peer support, contact Torbay Family Hub on 01803 210200 or go to https://bit.ly/TorbayFamilyHubVolunteerOpportunities

Peer support is when people use their own experiences to help each other and can complement the work of specialist services by offering a more holistic approach. It works flexibly to adapt to the needs of the parent and their family receiving peer support.

Peer support comes in many different shapes and forms. It can be delivered one to one or in a group, in person or online and this support may be offered through home visits, remote telephone or video call, group work or support to access other local services.

• Meeting, greeting, and supporting parents at face-to-face breast-feeding peer support groups or in the hospital
• Sign posting to relevant services and groups
• Promoting supervision topics and displaying relevant literature
• Keeping group resources up to date
• Assisting with setting up and tidying away the room and resources
• Normalising breast feeding in the community
• A commitment of approximately 3 hours a week

Part of the role involves helping parents navigate feeding choices and what works for them and their family. Being positive advocates of breast feeding but respectful in infant feeding choices. Peer supporters may help run our infant feeding groups, develop groups in the community or offer 1:1 contact.

To be a peer supporter you must have lived experience of the area you would like to be a peer supporter and committed to undertake accredited training. You will need

• Experience of having breastfed a child (either currently or in the past). All ages are welcome.
• A non-judgemental and friendly approach
• Good communication skills and the ability to relate to both adults and children in a virtual and a face-to-face breastfeeding peer support group setting
• Reliable, with the ability to be flexible and adapt to different situations
• A current DBS or be part of the update service. Full training and support will be given including Child Protection.

You will also gain practical experience of helping families with ongoing support from our staff team supporting families from across Torbay and you will meet a range of new people and be filled with a sense of satisfaction, knowing that you have helped make an unforgettable, positive difference to parents, babies and families.

Prior to starting this role, you will be required to complete a level 2 accredited 8 week training course (weekly 2-hour sessions, including breaks) alongside the volunteer training processes required by Action for Children who leads on this for our Torbay Family Hubs. Through training you’ll learn about how breastfeeding works, responsive feeding, & the UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative. You’ll also pick up lots of information on positioning, attachment, longer term breastfeeding, problem solving and communication skills.

• Introduction and benefits of breastfeeding
• Anatomy and Physiology
• Attachment and positioning
• Communication skills
• Life with a breastfed baby (when help is needed)
• Common Breastfeeding problems
• Boundaries
• Safeguarding (provided by Action For Children)
• Celebration session

On completion of the course we ask that you commit to volunteering for at least 6 months.

Peers supporters are mothers or grandmothers who are passionate about breastfeeding, have successfully breastfed at least one child and have a desire to help other mothers in their local community do the same. This is achieved by facilitating a local mother to mother support group, by building confidence and developing connections.

Yes, you can select which days, dates and times you would like to support. Just click on the button below and you can select which groups and sessions you are able to provide peer support at. You can book one session at a time or several in advance.

Once booked, you can cancel or amend your booking any time. You’ll also get an email to confirm which session you have booked to provide peer support on and a reminder the day before. You can even add it to your calendar. You can also book supervision with Gill or Alex or a one off appointment to talk through anything you want to discuss.

Don’t forget, we ask you to commit to around three hours a week when you sign up. This could be in a group, out in the community, phone, messaging, training or supervision.

We want you to feel supported in your role, connect share and learn from other Champions and Peer Supporters.

Once a term we host a Peer Supporters and Champion connection session which all trained Peer Supporters and Champions are invited to, and potential new Peer Supporters and Champions are invited to find out a bit more about being a Peer Supporters and Champions are invited to find out a bit more about being a Peer Supporter or Champion.

The session is warm and friendly and based on catching up with cake! We meet face to face during the day, evening or virtually.

• ‘Share Memorable Moments’ (either on post-its or as little videos).
• Enjoy coffee and cake(socialise with other volunteers)
• Group sharing (a brief chance for people to talk about anything special that’s happened as a volunteer or to share about any challenging situations.
• Share any relevant news/ information/new videos/training
• Celebrate

A memorable moment is something special that happens between a Champion or Peer Supporter and a family they are connected with. It may be as simple as celebrating a conversation they had with a local family or a lightbulb moment that happens with a parent when a key message is shared, it might be the joy of introducing someone to a new group or sharing a helpful website with a family. Whatever it is, we want to give our Peer Supporters and Champions a chance to share those memorable moments with others.

We want to minimise how many forms we are asking you to complete, and yet we want to understand how active you are in reaching families. It helps to get an idea of what is working and what needs rethinking, so this simple form to record your contact with families is available for peer supporters and champions to complete.

We have a quick form for you to fill in and there’s is a chance to earn points for prizes at the termly sessions as an incentive.

Torbay Family Hubs provide valuable continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities for our peer supporters and champions. Here are some opportunities we offer you:

• Quarterly / termly reviews with the peer support co-ordinator or practice lead to identify areas you would like to develop or are maybe finding a little challenging.
• Quarterly / termly connection sessions with other peer supporters and champions.
• Guest speakers
• Newsletters
• Learning from others at connection sessions
• 3 monthly update forms to see how your confidence is developing

Once you have been a peer supporter for a while you will have the opportunity to do additional training to become an enhanced peer supporter supporting mothers via phone or text in the very early days of having a baby. If you are interested in find out more, please contact Gill, our peer support trainer.

Friendly, welcoming breastfeeding support groups in your local Family Hub. Led by trained health visiting and family hub teams alongside trained breastfeeding Peer Supporters who have breastfed / chest fed their own children. You can feel assured that we provide reliable, evidence-based information for all mums and parents-to-be, breastfeeding / chest feeding and combination feeding families.

Our public health nursing (health visiting and school nursing teams) are BFI level 3 accredited and currently working towards our Gold accreditation while our Family Hub team are level 1 accredited and going for level 2.

Baby Friendly accreditation is based on a set of interlinking evidence-based standards for maternity, health visiting, community and hospital-based children’s services.

These are designed to provide parents with the best possible care to build close and loving relationships with their baby and to feed their baby in ways which will support optimum health and development. Facilities implement the standards in stages over a number of years. At each stage they are externally assessed by UNICEF UK. When all the stages are passed they are accredited as Baby Friendly, and will ultimately go on to a Gold award and Achieving Sustainability, embedding the standards permanently.