What are child care social workers doing in relation to infant mental health: an exploration of professional ideologies and practice preferences within an interagency context

Infancy is a crucial time for interventions to reduce later developmental difficulties. In England, recent policy has required children's service delivery to be redesigned to attend to infant mental health across all four tiers of NHS provision through inter-agency networks of child-care professionals. The policy identifies child-care social workers as primary care professionals, able to recognize early infant mental health problems, promote mental health and prevent deterioration. Our paper explores whether, as a profession, English child-care social workers are well prepared in terms of their knowledge, ideological beliefs and professional acculturation to implement such changes to their practice. Empirical information is provided from a funded, independent evaluation of the implementation of the NSF policy at a local level. Data from professional focus group interviews describe and compare the differing professional ideologies and professional practice preferences within the infant mental health network of an English NHS Primary Care Trust in an urban local authority. The findings identified obstacles that were personal–ideological, cultural and structural in nature. Progress towards achieving the NSF policy standards appeared slight.