PIP UK launches new strategy and new name

Parent Infant Partnership UK has launched an exciting new organisational strategy which will accelerate progress towards our goal of there being specialised parent-infant relationship teams across the UK, able to support all families who need them. The new strategy will enable the faster development of more new, sustainable services; support shared learning and quality improvement across the whole sector; and ensure the charity provides a national voice to campaign for policy change. 

The charity has moved from its original co-funding model of establishing individual parent-infant services towards providing the collaborative leadership to enable a collective growth of services across the UK. 

We want to see faster progress, particularly in scaling up services. To achieve this, we’ll be working in four main areas:

1. To improve availability of specialised parent-infant relationship teams across the UK
2. To improve service standards and quality
3. To build evidence of the clinical and economic benefits of services
4. To achieve policy change for babies by being a leading voice in the sector

You can read our five-year Vision & Strategy document here.

The charity’s evolution has been led by Chief Executive Dr Beckie Lang, who presented the new strategy at a launch event on Monday 7^th October.

As part of the process, in April this year, we employed our first communications manager, Alanna Clear, to lead a rebrand to ensure we could reflect the change across everything we do and say. During a brand audit process, we talked again to many people involved in PIP UK’s work to understand how they saw the PIP UK’s brand and our position within the infant mental health sector.

Through the many discussions and shared thoughts, we worked together to define our values as being:

Relationship-based: We connect and collaborate widely to enhance all parent-infant relationships.

Baby-focussed: We put babies and their emotional needs at the heart of everything we do.

Outcomes-orientated: We’re driven to achieve the best for babies, informed by data, evidence and practice.

These complement our vision and mission:

Our vision is that all babies have a sensitive, nurturing relationship to lay the foundation for lifelong mental and physical health.

Our mission is to support the growth and quality of specialised parent-infant relationship teams across the UK.

With our vision, mission and values set, we needed a brand to reflect us.

Beckie explained the rationale for the name change: “Our first big question was around the name. Parent Infant Partnership UK had accrued recognition and momentum over the seven years since it was set up, and we knew we needed to keep parent-infant in the name. But we wanted it to be clearer about what we do (“Partnership” often caused confusion) and to reflect our change in strategic direction. The Parent-Infant Foundation is explanatory and memorable.  It is also suggestive of the strong foundations we offer: to new teams and the sector, and to the babies they work with.  Importantly, early relationships provide the foundation for life long health and wellbeing.”

Then we started on the design, working with Emma Lord, a brand designer in Warwickshire, who recognised that the traditionally gendered pink and blue of the PIP UK logo was limiting and not representative of the charity as it moves forward. The new blue, orange and yellow brand and its distinctive icon and typeface create a more demonstrative, better-organised backdrop for the charity’s bold and ambitious work as connector and collaborator.

The new brand has immediately been put to work on the website redesign and the comprehensive Toolkit, eight chapters of detailed information and assistance. For the Toolkit design and layout, we worked with Mark Teagles at White Halo Design, and for the web overhaul, with James Burden at Perfectly Digital. Three fantastic partners for what has turned out to be an exciting, all-encompassing transformation created by tremendous teamwork.

Beckie summed up the whole experience by saying, “We’re thrilled with the outcome of the brand refresh. It’s been a lengthy and comprehensive process, and we’re now fully blue, orange and yellow!”