What We Do
The purpose of the Parent Advisory Group (PAG) is to use our collective experience as parents and carers of babies who have received care in a neonatal unit in the West Midlands. Some of the ways we do this are:
- Providing feedback and sharing our neonatal experiences.
- Working with staff and other stakeholders to create documents together (coproduce), such as family information resources, leaflets and posters.
- Representing families’ voices and experiences at network meetings.
- Reviewing and contributing to network plans and projects.
- Sharing our lived experience as part of staff education.
- Working with local MNVPs (Maternity & Neonatal Voices Partnerships) to ensure the experience of neonatal families is included when looking at the overall maternity journey of parents.
We currently have 14 members of the PAG who get involved as much or as little as they are able, there are no minimum requirements for involvement. We want to grow our group to make sure we hear the perspectives of as many families as possible across the region.
Our ambition is for PAG representatives to be involved in all aspects of West Midlands Perinatal Network (WMPN) work and your support to help us do this is very much appreciated. Find out about how you can get involved.
WhatsApp and email are used to keep PAG members updated and also seek their feedback and is coordinated by Jo Bussey, the Engagement & Evaluation Lead
How we work
The PAG meet every 3 months, to think about, discuss and input to network projects. We mainly meet online via MS Teams; we hope to be having more in-person meetups.
We have also recently introduced a monthly coproduction group, working with staff and other stakeholders. This group focuses on projects to improve families’ neonatal experiences and has included:
- Reviewing and updating the network Neonatal Journey document.
- Review and give parent feedback on resources such as parent involvement in ward rounds, developmental cot cards, and parent information leaflets.
- Creating a family experience survey.
- Creating an antenatal awareness poster and social media campaign.
