Lived Experience Expertise: Supporting the Transition to Parenting

Hosted by the MHPN in partnership with Emerging Minds, this webinar explores how peer support can help families navigate the complex challenges of preterm birth, NICU care, and early parenting.

Families navigating pregnancy, birth, and the early months of parenting can face significant emotional, practical, and system-related challenges.

Using a hypothetical case study exploring a journey following preterm birth and a NICU stay, this webinar will follow key transition points where clear communication, coordinated care, and family engagement are essential. You will gain practical insight into the role of lived experience workers as part of the care team, and how they can support families to navigate services, process complex information, and stay engaged in care during high stress periods.

For practitioners, this session offers a practical perspective on how peer support can complement your practice, strengthen therapeutic relationships, and support continuity of care.

Learning outcomes:

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Describe the unique insights that lived experience workers bring to support parent-infant relationship and infant mental health.
• Outline the role of peer support in reducing stigma and shame during the perinatal period and to foster healing and self compassion.
• Demonstrate how lived experience workers support families to navigate complex systems of care and strengthen continuity, trust, and relational safety.