Judith Rees
Judith Rees was appointed as Director of Operations at The For Baby’s Sake Trust in July 2015. She is a qualified practitioner in Video Interaction Guidance, an internationally leading parenting intervention which is provided to mothers and fathers participating in For Baby’s Sake to build their capacity to provide attuned sensitive parenting. Judith previously worked in the UK National Health Service for 33 years. Over this time she was a Staff Nurse, Midwife, Health Visitor, Practice Teacher, Safeguarding Children's Nurse and Team Leader for Health Visitors and School Nurses before setting up and being the Supervisor for the Family Nurse Partnership Team in Hertfordshire for the last 4 years. Judith’s commitment to safeguarding babies, children and families was reflected in her dissertation for her MSc in Child Protection and Child Welfare, when she produced an assessment tool for Health Visitors responding to police notifications of domestic abuse where there were children or an unborn baby in the family. Judith was a member of the Stakeholder Expert Reference Group on Trauma-Informed Care, producing national guidelines and care pathways on behalf of NHS England on trauma-informed practice for maternity and perinatal health settings.
Monday - Wednesday Workshops
Workshop Three - Judith Rees & Amanda McIntyre
Video Interaction Guidance: Breaking cycles of domestic abuse and giving babies the best start
This workshop will share lessons from For Baby’s Sake, a programme working with both parents, whether together as a couple or not, from pregnancy until the baby is aged two. An evaluation, led by King’s College London and published in 2020, found that the programme was the first to address existing limitations of whole-family responses to domestic violence and abuse (DVA), stating that 'other interventions do not target the impacts of DVA in utero, or combine trauma-informed DVA support with attachment- focused parenting support for both parents; key gaps that For Baby’s Sake is addressing within this programme’. This workshop will explain how For Baby’s Sake works therapeutically and safely, focusing on the key change mechanisms, with a focus on the use of Video Interactive Guidance to support mentalisation and attuned interaction between parents and babies and explaining how this is complemented by Inner Child work within a trauma-informed recovery framework.