Our brand new Family Integrated Care SIG is launching soon!
Meet our chair below or scroll down to register your interest and be the first to find out when the group launches.
You can also apply for one of the lead roles within the group: Lead for Developmental Care and Lead for Family Engagement. Fill in this Expressions of Interest form to register your interest.
Meet our Chair
Our Chair is Ailie Hodgson, Care Coordinator for the Northern Neonatal Network (NNN).
Ailie Hodgson
I am a Care Coordinator for the Northern Neonatal Network (NNN) and I support units from across the North East & North Cumbria. I work closely with our Parent Advisory Group (PAG) to ensure that their experiences help to improve care and that resources and work streams are co-produced.
A Neonatal and Paediatric Occupational Therapist (OT) by background, I set up the first neonatal OT provision in the NNN on a Level 3 Tertiary Unit, and joined the NNA as an Allied Health Professional Member. I teach Family Integrated Care (FICare), developmental care & Unicef BFI standards throughout the NNN, in order to promote better outcomes for babies and families.
Receiving an NNA Travel Scholarship in 2021 enabled me to visit Swedish gold standard neonatal units, which has given me insight into what fully embedded FICare looks like, and what we should be striving for within the UK. I am very excited to be undertaking this role with the NNA, to contribute towards achieving high standards of evidence based care at a national level.
FICare group leads
Amanda Smith
INFANT FEEDING LEAD
Amanda Smith
I am the Neonatal Infant Feeding Coordinator for Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which includes Luton and Dunstable Hospital's NICU and Bedford Hospital's SCBU (Meadowbank). I support the two units in embedding the neonatal BFI standards and with specialist lactation and infant feeding input; and I work closely with families, nursing and medical staff, and AHPs.
I am a children's nurse, having worked on paediatric wards and in the community supporting children with complex health needs, although over a decade of my nursing career have been in neonatal care. I trained and volunteered in breastfeeding peer support two years into my nursing career, ultimately sitting the exam to become an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant (IBCLC) as it felt imperitive that the families within neonatal care had access to an infant feeding specialist familiar with their journey. I further specialised in Neonatal Homecare where I supported establishment of home NGT programmes and later led on the development and integration of a home phototherapy service, am a trained restrictive lingual frenulum (tongue tie) practitioner, and have worked as a neonatal network's Infant Feeding Advisor to ten neonatal units to support those feeding leads in their roles. I am also on the Board of Trustees for the Lactation Consultants of Great Britain (LCGB), where I am the Neonatal Lead and work with members and non-members to provide rigorous education for those delivering breastfeeding and lactation information and care to families.
It is wonderful to see the development of the FICare SIG, and I look forward to the NNA providing this space for us to share best practice, quality improvement work, ideas, and passion for such an essential and rewarding aspect of neonatal care.
Register your interest
Register your interest to be the first to find out when our Family Integrated Care SIG launches.