The last step before the final quiz is about developing networks with others who have completed INFANT training, and opportunities to share ideas and find support.
Connecting with other health professionals who are working in the same area can encourage problem solving, generate new ideas to recruit and engage participants, and reduce duplication of resources such as promotional brochures or evaluation surveys.
In 2022, we commenced an online INFANT “Community of Practice” for trained INFANT facilitators, to complement the INFANT facilitator’s forum on our website. The online CoP events are hosted by the INFANT team and can be virtually attended by all trained INFANT facilitators. The first CoP focused on engaging priority groups who are experiencing personal or social barriers that inhibit their participation in INFANT groups. A summary of the CoP sessions can be found under ‘forums’ in the facilitator’s section of the INFANT website. You can also find about about the next CoP on our website and in the INFANT e-newsletters.
- If you have any questions about the CoP, post them in the Comments section below or contact the team at E: infant-study@deakin.edu.au
Your task
Watch the video from the INFANT team’s Dr Penny Love to find out more about our Community of Practice and how you can learn from other INFANT facilitators and improve the program in your community.
Submit a comment about what you’re most looking forward to, or specific topics or issues that you’d like to discuss in the Community of Practice. These could include:
- applying the principles of effective facilitation and behaviour change to your own INFANT sessions
- how others have implemented the program
- what they did to embed it into routine practice
- overcoming challenges like organisational support, maintaining participation and funding.Read the comments from others and replies from the INFANT team. Once you’re ready, select the ‘mark complete’ button then select ‘next lesson’ for the next step.
COP is a great idea, I love leaning from others
I love learning from other facilitators, CoP is a great idea – thanks
CofP is a great idea and will be very useful in building confidence in presenting.
I look forward to seeing a power point too.
COP it a great idea to brainstorm ideas together, ask tricky questions/scenarios amongst each other and share resources.
I’m yet to facilitate an INFANT session however am ready to step in when required. Having time with our own staff members to discuss the ‘behind the scenes’ would be beneficial and then using the same materials with the presentations.
Power points does sound like a useful tool that would be universal to all LGAs.
Enjoyed attending the recent COP online forum and looking forward to the next one, it is great to hear from other facilitators about barriers, strategies to address these barriers and to hear what works well. A Powerpoint for each session would be great, including some brief conversation starters relevant to the key messages at each age group.
Great to share and learn from others. Power Points with links to video’s would be great. A Video to play in waiting rooms would be great too to promote these messages.
We are not yet delivering the program. I like the idea of not having to reinvent the wheel and being able to use simple Powerpoints that we can change to suit our service.
I agree with previous comments regarding having power point presentations so the program is uniformly delivered. We are not delivering the program yet either.
We are not yet delivering INFANT but I like the idea of some simple Powerpoint presentation slides that we could all use and update to suit our service. It would be really useful to help our service implement INFANT in groups. I love the idea of not having to reinvent the wheel.
Great idea about COP and the powerpoint presentation for facilitators. The more we can discuss, share and support each other the greater benefit and outcome it will be for our families
The CoP may also help with tricky questions or how to handle negative feedback from participants.
Looking forward to being a part of the CoP and learning from my colleagues
I think that is great, helping each other roll out this program. That is not my role as I am just helping out with first time parents groups when needed at present
A great resource to help combat those challenges we face – no need to reinvent the wheel when others are already doing it.
I like the idea of a community of practitioners, it will allow for troubleshooting but also allow us all to stay up to date!
Whilst we are not yet doing the program until July we attended the recent community of practice forum and found it very helpful to hear of other challenges and brainstorm suggestions for when we get up and running. Power point presentation sounds like a great idea.
I think consistency is key so a powerpoint would be a fantastic tool and keep us all on track with INFANT
I like the idea of power points and I am looking forward to implementing strategies in our area to increase and maintain participation rates.
It will be interesting to finally offer the program in our area. We attended the recent Community of Practice held which was helpful to us to hear about the challenges that others have experienced for us to learn from.
We are not yet delivering INFANT but I like the idea of some simple Powerpoint presentation slides that we could all use and update to suit our service/area. It would be another barrier gone to implementing this. It also seems unnecessary to all reinvent the wheel so to speak…
I think the CoP is a great idea to help facilitators connect and give each other ideas and tips on running/facilitating a group and how they have overcome challenges.
I like the ideas that have been suggested for a power point presentation with pictures and videos.
Power point presentations with talking points and the inclusion of videos of infants feeding and age appropriate activities would be helpful for each of the 4 sessions.
Yes I agree, are there Power point slides for the older age group sessions?
It’s great to know that there is a large community of support for everyone delivering this program. Working in a team where all the MCHN deliver the program is very supportive too.
May be the manual a bit more streamlined , . I do facilitate groups with an dietitian but the group leader organizes the speakers and times. It is good to work with other professional from Community Health Centres.
Our MCH service has appointed a MCH Groups Leader and INFANT sessions are included in her brief. The aim is to involve all trained INFANT facilitators in providing sessions throughout the year but the Groups Leader books the sessions, organises the facilitators and resources, records the groups/attendance in CDIS and promotes the sessions to families. This has been really helpful to our MCH team.
I am very fortunate in that my colleague is very happy to share her learnings and tips before I faciliate my first session.
The PowerPoint presentation seems like a good idea.
Look forward to participating in CoP as we will learn from each other as well as discuss our learnings from clients we work with.
I think the cOP will be useful as we are implementing later this year. i look forward to hearing from others how and why thing
s have worked or not
I am hoping to encourage more people to do the training to use it in a new piece of work I am involved in. It will involve families with young babies engaging with us weekly for approximately 12months. We can do the session throughout that program and use the resources throughout as prompts.
Our Council have put together our own power point presentation for the sessions. Someone else has suggested which I agree – it would be great if a PowerPoint presentation was available so that could be more a united front, with more visuals in particular to food, food textures, allergens
INFANT team response:
Hi Lisa, thanks for your suggestion. We are looking at putting a power-point presentation together, to assist facilitators deliver INFANT sessions. We’ll let you all know when it’s available. Thanks
I agree Lisa, Having a power point to use as a template which includes some pictures to help guide the session and discussion points that is consistent across facilitators and LGAs would be amazing!
I have also had the same idea of developing of a powerpoint as i think a bit more structure and visual is important for 1.5-2 hour sessions.
However, most of our baby friendly sites have limited IT support (E.g. stable internet connection, sound system). Even playing INFANT videos have been a challenge for us.
We try to run the session as interactive as possible due to no IT available. I wonder if other sites have found IT an issue.
This would be a good resource. Just some dot points to guide discussion and reinforce the messaging
I agree with Lisa, having a consistant powerpoint presentation. Our LGA is doing a lot of work in this area as we speak, however having something come from the INFANT team will be welcomed by all I’m sure. Having a Community of Practice will be wonderful to bounce off each others’ experiences and great minds
I would like to see the manual streamlined a bit more as it’s hard to follow in the session. Talking points should all be in the same spot, you shouldn’t have to flick back and forward. I would also like to see a more modern version of the videos as they look dated.
I enjoy facilitating the sessions and helping families become more educated in healthy eating and active play for families.
It would be great if a PowerPoint presentation was available so that could be more a united front. I have put the key messages on a power point and show the video clips which the families enjoy the videos that reinforce what spoken about.
I’m looking forward to offering this program to our area, something new & different to what we’ve had before. And working with MCH to run this together.
Interested to learn if anyone has coordinated a regional approach (multiple LGAs) to implementation and associated barriers/enablers encountered.
INFANT team response: Interesting question Liz. One Primary Care Partnership (PCP) has been working together for over one year to support each other to implement INFANT within each of their LGAs. The PCP coordinator organised the meetings while, at the meetings, the LGAs discussed their progress. This worked well as some of the Community Health Services overlap and service multiple LGAs therefore can work through how best to share capacity and strategies. As PCPs move to another model, the responsibility of coordination of the meetings in the future could become an issue but the PCP’s expertise in bringing together partners has been invaluable. But the INFANT team too, would love to hear if others are working collaboratively with other LGAs.