SC240063 Parent Infant Mental Health (PIMHS)

PIN – Parent Infant Relationship Mental Health Service (PIMHS)

Kent County Council (KCC) are anticipating procuring a Parent-Infant Mental Health (PIMH) Service to be in place from November 2025.

This procurement will fall under the Health Care Service (PSR) Regulations 2023.

Please note that this Prior Information Notice (PIN) is not a call for competition at this stage.

We are seeking an organisation that can provide and manage a Multidisciplinary team of Clinical psychologists, Occupational Therapists, Specialist Parent-Infant Mental Health Practitioners, Psychotherapists and mixed providers with clinical expertise who can bring a range of skills to help deliver this proposed new and ground breaking service for Kent.

The proposed service would be made up of:

Overall Clinical Lead for the Multidisciplinary Team - 1 WTE
Specialist Clinical Lead and Clinical Lead to the Operational Team – 1 WTE
Operational Team Specialist Practitioner – 3 WTE ( 3 WTE from year 2 onwards)
Administrator – Minimum of 1 WTE

The draft Service specification: outlines an approach for the market to consider and KCC would like organisations to come together at an in-person market engagement event with other agencies for an opportunity to collaborate on how you could deliver this proposed service. Please note updates have been made to the safeguarding sections of the draft Service specification and updated throughout to reflect how the proposed service could be delivered by a provider or providers who would like to work in a collaborative partnership.

The provider will need to create and maintain a Kent Parent Infant Mental Health website to support parents, families and professionals in Kent. The website will need to provide a range of resources tailored to support both parents, families and professionals.

This proposed service for Kent will engage families, embedding support and helping them to form healthy relationships with their infant.

You will be flexible in your approach to meet the differing needs of our population, including children in deep poverty as well as neurodivergent parents. Screening tools such as GAD7 will be utilised to identify need and interventions required. We are open to suggestions of alternative, evidence based models and any other feedback you may wish to provide.

The proposed service will work as a team supporting families with identified needs who may have been referred by the health visiting service, accredited Video Interaction Guidance (VIG) practitioners and trained baby massage practitioners.

Next steps:

Please complete and return attached questionnaire and any feedback or extra questions by 12pm on Wednesday 16th April 2025 to Sophia.Dunstan@Kent.gov.uk

Parent-Infant Mental Health Service Pre-Market Questionnaire & Registration Form (copy and paste link in browser)
https://forms.office.com/e/1hxhFz0iXu

Market Engagement Event – Online

Day: Wednesday 23rd April 2025
Time: 12:00-13:00
Location – Microsoft Teams

To register for this event, please click the link below; copy and paste link in browser (please complete and return by 12pm Wednesday 16th April 2025):
https://forms.office.com/e/1hxhFz0iXu

If you have any questions or need assistance, please email:
Sophia.Dunstan@Kent.gov.uk

Documents included:

Pre-market Questionnaire and Registration Form
Parent Infant Mental Health Draft Specification
Parent Infant Mental Health Overview Slides