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ABSTRACT
Early parent–infant home visiting interventions have been found to be effective in both developed and developing countries. However, there is a need to build an evidence base for these interventions in the South African context, to inform local early childhood development policy. The Ububele Mother-Baby Home Visiting Programme in Alexandra, Johannesburg, combines a psychoanalytic approach to thinking about parent–infant relationships and local infant care knowledge. Trained, local women offer a 14-visit intervention, which aims to support mothers, increase knowledge about the relational needs of infants, and increase maternal reflective function capacities. A mixed-methods approach was used to evaluate preliminary findings regarding mothers' responses to the programme and found significant increases in the mothers’ levels of perceived support, in levels of knowledge regarding the relational needs of infants and in maternal reflective function capacities. The supportive relationship between home visitors and mothers was highlighted as key to programme success.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Katherine Bain is a senior lecturer and researcher at the University of the Witwatersrand. She teaches clinical psychology and guides students under ‘PhD by publications’ programmes. Her research interests include psychoanalytic psychotherapy, parent-infant intervention and cross-cultural application of these.
Nicola Dawson is a counselling psychologist and the Ububele Mother-Baby Home Visiting project manager at Ububele. She is currently pursuing a PhD degree, investigating local understandings of maternal sensitivity.
Melanie Esterhuizen is a clinical psychologist and former Ububele Mother-Baby Home Visiting Project manager. She currently works as a supervising psychologist for the Gauteng Department of Health.
Katharine Frost is an educational psychologist and the Director of the Ububele Educational and Psychotherapy Trust. Darren Pininski is a clinical psychologist and completed his MA dissertation on mothers' experiences of the Ububele Mother-Baby Home Visiting Project.
