Ask your candidates to join the campaign

In Scottish Parliament elections, you get two votes, one for your constituency MSP and one for a regional MSP. Find out who your constituency candidates are, and their contact details here.

Find out who your regional candidates are, and their contact details here.

Want to check if your candidates are already supporting the campaign? Find out here.

As charities, we are not supporting any single party over another. We are urging all political parties to support the Manifesto for Babies in Scotland. And we have written to all the political parties asking them to back these recommendations.

As you will have several constituency candidates, and many more regional list candidates, you may wish to prioritise emailing the candidates that polls suggest are most likely to win. There are lots of regional candidates, so you could choose the candidate placed number one on each party’s list.

Subject line: Please will you speak up for local babies?

Dear [NAME]

As a local voter living in [TOWN / POSTCODE AREA], I am contacting you to ask you to pledge to ‘speak up for babies in Scotland’ if you are elected in May.

[Explain in a couple of sentences why you care about supporting babies in Scotland, their wellbeing and rights. You could mention your work with families, or the challenges that you have helped families to overcome].

Include our key campaign messages:

• Babies depend on sensitive, responsive care to grow and develop healthily. But many do not get the nurturing care they need. At least 9,000 babies in Scotland are estimated to be living in fear and distress.
• Scotland has several progressive policies that support babies, including an ongoing commitment to funding perinatal and infant mental health services, but we need to reach more babies.
• Our Manifesto for babies in Scotland sets out five headline recommendations. It calls for a cross-government strategy to join up policy around babies’ emotional wellbeing, developmental needs, rights and participation.
• Babies are often overlooked and rely on adults to defend their rights. Will you speak up for babies in Scotland?

Include this link to the Speak up for babies in Scotland page (where they can sign up to support the campaign): https://parentinfantfoundation.org.uk/our-work/what-we-do/manifesto-for-babies-in-scotland/pledge/

Include this disclaimer, so that candidates from all parties are able to sign up to the campaign:

A pledge does not imply support for all these policy recommendations – it is a promise to consider babies' needs and to speak up for them, if they are elected.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Let us know who you have contacted, by forwarding your email (and their response) to [email protected]

Optional: You could also invite a candidate to visit your service if they are elected as an MSP – maybe for Infant Mental Health Awareness Week in June. Please contact us for support with this, and we advise only inviting one candidate at a time.

Thank you!