Rockabye (Parent-Infant Support) CIC

Rockabye (Parent-Infant Support) CIC’s groups benefit parents and babies and their families by supporting and nourishing attachment bonds, aiding mental health recovery, and reducing the social isolation that new families frequently experience. Rockabye groups provide an essential point of contact for families and an opportunity to build a new, supportive network of friends/fellow parents in the community. In 2024-25, Rockabye delivered 26 groups across Bristol and for the first time, in South Gloucestershire. This included 17 postnatal Rockabye groups, 3 antenatal Rockabye groups, 3 Rockabye groups to support Refugee and Asylum-seeking families, 3 Parents to Be Rockabye groups supporting couples during pregnancy, and a new postnatal Rockabye group in South Gloucestershire. Rockabye were aware of South Glos families unable to access Bristol groups and this last group was launched in response. Our team were delighted to be able to work with parents at Staple Hill Children’s centre in May 2025. Between August 2024 and July 2025, Rockabye was funded by the NHS, Family Hubs and Bristol City Council. Family Hubs funding began in September 2023 and during this year continued to increase Rockabye’s reach and impact. Since 2023, this originally 2 year award has enabled Rockabye to double the number of groups delivered. During 2024/25 9 groups were delivered during 2 of the 3 academic terms. Looking ahead, Rockabye’s greatest priority is to maintain this level of group delivery and provide consistent, sustainable support for families across Bristol and South Gloucestershire. Rockabye continued its close collaboration with children’s centres in 2024-25. All groups were delivered in Bristol children’s centres and for the first time at Staple Hill Children’s Centre in South Gloucestershire. Group locations across Bristol included Knowle, Barton Hill, Southmead, St Anne’s, Sea Mills, Bedminster, Hartcliffe and Bannerman Road. During 2024-25, Rockabye continued to expand its training work. Thanks to BCC and Family Hubs funding, 2 Family Support Workers were trained in the Rockabye programme and 2 further FSWs completed antenatal Rockabye training. All trained Family Support Workers move onto to deliver groups independently or in partnership with Rockabye. Within Rockabye’s own team, 2 therapists completed their Rockabye training in the Autumn term of 2024 and graduated to deliver their first group independently at Inns Court in Knowle in January 2025. Rockabye also delivered training for two therapists in antenatal Rockabye and another therapist in the Parents to Be programme further building and consolidating the expertise and experience of our team. In 2024/2025, Rockabye continued to use NHS funding to run a support group for mums and babies within Bristol’s Refugee and Asylum-seeking community. Rockabye’s partnership with the organisation Refugee Rights helped our team to successfully continue this work. During the autumn term of 2024, 18 families attended the Wellspring group, 7 of whom were new to Rockabye. Families were referred the group by Bristol Refugee Rights, Project Mama, Home Start, a Health Visitor, or an existing group member brought them along. Additional NHS funding allowed Rockabye to pay for an Arabic translator and cover group expenses. In December 2024, Bristol Refugee Rights had to withdraw from partnering the group with Rockabye due to a loss of funding. In the summer term of 2025, 18 families attended the group. A mum who attended had to move away following a hate incident and she reflected: “I felt in a circle of family in the distance from my homeland and relatives. Hopefully we will one day meet again.” The monitoring feedback given by parents to Rockabye in 2024-25 was invaluable to the service and our organisation consider this to be perhaps the most important measure of our impact. An example is the comments of a parent who attended a group at Filton Avenue Children’s centre with her new baby in January 2025: “Rockabye has been incredibly important to me as I dealt with feeling the lowest I have ever felt. There is a lot of stigma, and personal feelings of shame, around not enjoying being a new mum, and suffering from PND, and I didn’t feel like I could speak to anyone beyond my partner and my mum about it. It is a heavy weight to have to hold up this pretence while also dealing with everything else, and Rockabye is the only place I have been able to be open and honest about how I felt. Hearing other people express the same thoughts I’d been having made a huge difference to helping me realise it wasn’t something lacking in me that I hadn’t bonded with my baby, and I’ve also made real friends who I will keep in contact with and have someone to reach out to, and be there for them. Being encouraged to listen without offering solutions was particularly helpful. Lastly, the different activities helped me bond with my baby in a structured way instead of being out all day or dreading being at home. This and being able to reflect each week on progress - and being ok with it not always being in a straight line - has made it clearer for me to see how I’ve come from being scared to be alone with my baby, and not wanting to hold her, to a place where I feel like I understand her deeply and have a connection with her no one else can replicate, and I love holding her and pinching her chubby little legs. I’m not quite ok yet but I am much better and feel better able to cope or ask for help” One of Rockabye (Parent-Infant Support) CIC's activities is collaboration and building partnerships with other agencies. We pursued this in 2024/2025 by participating in Bristol’s Perinatal Mental Health Hub - a group of voluntary organisations who work together in Bristol. Rockabye’s team also played an active part in numerous stakeholder discussions concerning the NHS system and funding changes taking place in 2024/25. A highlight of 2024-25 was a Tea Party organised by Rockabye at City Hall in Bristol on November 25th, 2024. This event thanked BCC for its consistent support of our service and championed Rockabye’s work in Bristol over the last twenty years. It was a joyful celebration with many parents, babies, therapists and colleagues including commissioners and representatives from fellow charities, attending in support of our work. We were particularly delighted to welcome parents; some of whom generously spoke about the vital contribution the service has made to them and their families. Rockabye provided a CPD day for practitioners and FSWs jointly in September 2024. In 2024-25, Rockabye recorded an increased profit level. This was partly due to an increase in the number of groups delivered and the organisation’s turnover. During this year, Rockabye operated tight controls on spending due to funding insecurity and delays around funding decisions and procurement timelines. The Family Hubs grant was planned as a 2-year project in Dec/Jan 2023; the contract was dated 1 September 2023 - 31 March 2025, an 18-month period. Some activity, by agreement with our commissioners, was delayed until 2024-25. Rockabye received follow-on funding from Family Hubs at the end of March 2025 in advance of our main grant. Rockabye operates with a lean administrative cost base with a team of 3 employees and no rental premises. In 2025-26 Rockabye will be looking to improve and invest in its service infrastructure to support the increase in delivery of groups. In line with Rockabye’s stated, founding purpose, all CIC activities are continuous and on-going, and all profit made is used for the sole activity of group delivery and parent infant mental health support. As per Rockabye’s Articles of Association (2019), article 4.1, Rockabye functions as a ‘Not for profit’ organisation with activities not conducted for private gain and any surplus or assets used principally for the benefit of the community. Rockabye ended the financial year with increased Members Fund which will provide reserves for the service to continue for a limited period of time if necessary.