tiktok / someone else with NCT knowledge please can you help??

[StealthPolarBear]

What would you expect from an 8 week NCT peer supporter course?
What kind of content, and roughly how weighted (how long for each bit)?
Currently MNing while restarting the router every 5 seconds so might not be back for a while but I will be back and will read and appreciate answers.

I know NCT has a peer supporter course, but you need to ask the trainer or the training provider for this level of detail, SPB.

OTOH, there may be someone on MN who has done it and may have more info than me.

Sorry, wasn't very clear. Am doing one and it's not really what I exoected, was wondering if it was typical of the NCT courses
Would be interested to hear from anyne who's done it

SPB, the breastfeeding counsellor course is very different from the peer supporter course...is this what you meant?

I can tell you about an NHS and an LLL peer supporter courses would that help ?

no, I do mean the peer support course, thought you might have input into them. Thanks anyway. Will be interested to hear from anyone who's done them. That would be interesting thanks, Be

Hi SPB - Here is a course outline for my course. It is 2 hours a session for 14 sessions. Wish it could be longer, but only because we are all a bunch of gobshites

1. Recognise the effects of our own experiences on breastfeeding.

• Personal experiences
• Cultural affects
• Identifying benefits for mum and baby

2. Appreciate the importance of having a good understanding of breastfeeding.

• How breastfeeding works (hormonal development and anatomy of the breast)
• Identifying changes in the breast during pregnancy
• Identifying good/poor attachment
• Identifying practices to get bfing off to a good start and ones that would hinder successful breastfeeding.
• Characteristics of a well fed bf baby.
• Recognising when bfing is going well and when it is not going well.

3. Recognise the different approaches to weaning.

• Approaches to weaning
• Ways to support a mother who wants to stop bfing.

4. Recognise the needs of a bfing mother.

• Nutrition in the family.
• Recognising physcial, psychological, social and cultural challenges to bfing and how to overcome them.
• Ways to support a bfing mother returning to work and knowing the different options to offer.
• Alternative methods of milk storage and how to store milk safely.

5. Recognise the role of the peer supporter.

• Identifying the role of peer supporter.
• Identifying limitations and knowing when to refer and who to refer to.
• Support networks for bfing mothers
• Support skills needed to support bfing mothers.
• Demonstrating support skills and indentifying the use of such skills to help a bfing mother and her family.

We have been doing a lot of discussion, and practical exercises, a lot of this stuff a lot of us know anyway but we have bringing our knowledge together. As I think I have mentioned before, it is being run by the breastfeeding support co-ordinator (She herself has bf her 2 dds until they weaned themselves off) who is employed by the local NHS trust.

We now have some guidelines as to what she envisages us to do once we complete the course and our CRB checks come back.

I honestly don't see how they could cover all of the above in 8 weeks! Unless the course leader is lecturing at you and giving you lots of self-study!

Thank you BT, that's really detailed!
Next step is to find out what SureStart expect us to do as peer supporters, I don't think they've thought it through themselves. If this course carries on as it's started (which seems to be the case from what she's said) then I certainly won't be ready to do any proper peer support and help women either start or continue breastfeeding.
If they have thought this through then they have a very different approach to peer support - I wonder if there is any evidence as to what type of support works and what doesn't?

Well we've only just started section 5, so I think we will be covering that!
I will come back to this later and add the stuff we have about our role, need to get dressed and ds dressed as we have to leave shortly

Why not, SPB. Tell us more about the course.

Today we made posters! All about breastfeeding support and where to find it.

Naturally Mumsnet got a mention, but not Bounty or Netmums lol.

Well this is what our course leader has come up with, wrt to what she envisages us doing.

• Providing support and encouragement to breastfeeding mothers
• to promote breastfeeding as opportunities allow
• to act as a friend and supporter to women identified by the Bfing co-ordinator, Bfing support home visitors, and HCPs. (What this means is that we will get referrals, and we will only be contacting mums outside of a bfing group after they have been referred to us).
• to provide support with breastfeeding education at antenatal clinics and healthy start clinics, and through targeted initiatives such as teenage pregnancy service, arrival practice, Ready for Baby.
• to consult with local parents to determine local needs and requirements.
• to support the bfing support services at and promote bfing support groups in the local community.
• to participate in local & national promotions/events to increase the profile on bfing, e.g. Breastfeeding Awareness Week, children's centres events.
• to support parentcraft classes
• to signpost to relevant HCPs/agencies where necessary
• to provide phone support.

I already have my first assignment - I am helping out next month at one of the bfing support groups as one of the bfing home visitors is going to Australia for a month (the lucky cow )

Still bugging you then

Bugging me too.

(SPB and I are on the same course)

Our course so far has all been about listening skills and IMO hasn't been done very well. Obviously listening and counselling skills are important but we have not really talked about bf much at all.

SPB asked for the course outline at the last session and she said she would give it to us.

We are constantly being reminded that we are not there to giove advice which makes it even more unclear what our role will be as I imagine that people who contact us for help will be wanting advice. That said I tried to clarify this a little y asking what we were supposed to say if there were obvious signs of thrush or tongue tie or something that we knew was wrong and needed to be looked at and the answer is the "have you considered x I suggest you go to your GP" although to me this means that someone is going to go to their GP and say "The peer supporter said it was tongue tie" and then we could get it in the neck for giving advice.

It is just very confusing. She said we will spend a session on looking at problems and latch but I fail to see how a single 2 hour session will enable us to be confident in recognising problems.

Also, if someone is having problems with latch,we are not confident in latch, we are not supposed to give advice, then we just have to point them to their HV or someone (and we know how bad HVs can be) so surely the poor mum is going to be wondering what the point of the peer supporter is and is going ot feel as though she is going round in circles?

I want to do BT's course, it is far more what I was expecting. Am temtped to print out her outline and try to have a chat with our trainer. Perhaps also get my rambling confused questions into order for her. SHe seems away with the fairies a lot of the time and not so great at listening so asking questions doesn't get a very direct answer

I was just going to post that!
FB - I haven't ignored your question, I am actually going to answer it thoroughly as a basis for what I do next.
The way I see it (and I hope I am wrong) these are the problems in general:

• The PCT doesn't know what it wants us to do, and is expecting NCT trainer (called K) to tell us, but it's not her place.
• The course is both very good and also not good. It's good if you want an idiot's guide to counselling (which I fully admit I need!) but so far it hasn't been related to bf peer support in any meaningful way - not enough linking to the problem.
• K is I'm sure a very good bfc but does not seem to be a trainer. As Indith mentions, we don't have a course outline, and whenever anyone brings anything up she says "yes we can cover that if you want", either she has built in a lot of slack time, or other stuff is going to suffer, or it will be forgotten (and she hasn't made any notes of these topics)
• The whole thing seems very woolly and focussed on feelings, judgements, listening. I appreciate we are not bfcs, we are not there to help with problems, but surely at the very least they need to correct any misconceptions we do have so we don't spread them and make sure we are all giving the 'party line' on important topics - e.g. whether to mix feed in the first few days as mother doesn't have enough milk.
• I have no idea whether/where we can get support for specific issues that we want to know about - whether these are best discussed with the other peer supporters or brought up in the course - I don't want to take it even more off track. Some issues that have occured to me are supporting mothers to bf second time round when they really struggles with their first, supporting mothers when communication is an issue either because of language, disability or just a total clash of personalities, what practically you do during support sessions - whether for example it is acceptable to demonstrate latch (say) by feeding your own baby. I know they can't account for every situation but I think there are some fundamental things that need addressing (and I'm sure everyone else will have loads) but I don't know who and when this will be done.

Anyway, first step is to talk to her and/or the PCT battleaxe. Hmm.

Hmmm your course does sound very unstructured compared to mine!

See we have been advised we can give advice, but any medical matters we need to refer.
So we can say,if the mum gives us permission to look at her breast/nipple, "yes that looks like it could be thrush, but you need to see a BFC/GP to get that confirmed".
Or if after seeing a baby which is showing signs of not being well fed (poor latch for example) then we should not try to correct it, but contact the BF co-ordinator and let her know so she can arrange to visit the mum herself.

It is also quite interesting what you have said about the listening skills, we have actually been recommended by our course leader to go on a separate listening/counselling course.

It sounds weird to not help you with latch. The BFN peer supporters course is 14 weeks of two-hour sessions, with a lot on latch, and a lot on listening skills. They don't go that much into deeper stuff, like milk supply issues etc.

thanks, both of you. NQC, what is BFN?

BFN is the breastfeeding network, SPB - another bf organisation.

The Peer Support model is very well established now and it has been shown that what is most helpful to mums is a listening ear from someone who isn't going to do what their MIL/HV/GF book does and leap in with 'oh, I had that, you need to do this...'. That is why there is such an emphasis on listening and information giving skills. As a PS you are a listening ear and a signposter. You don't need to know loads about bfing, but you do need to know how to work within your own limitations, how not to assume you know things, how to find things out, where to send mothers to for more in depth help.

You will be shown how to watch a bfeed to help a mum with latch, but there is no way that a trainer can include all the information about bfing there is to know in a short course. What she can do, though, is make sure you know not to advise women, but to listen to them, give them a chance to vent, or work out what they want to do, and then help them work out where to find the information and/or help they need.

The knowledge about bfing will come later on as you get more experienced as a PS and spend more time looking through The Breastfeeding Answer Book (for example), with a mother, or sitting with her while she spends time with the BFC you've helped her access.

The point is, if the trainer spent 7 weeks on inadequate bf information (because there's not enough time to fit it all in) and only 1 session on the listening and information-giving skills you need to make you an effective PS, then you could actually do more harm than good IYSWIM. As do many HVs who assume they know enough about BFing to advise women to do things without actually taking them time (primarily because they don't have the time, I accept!) to listen to the mother and find out what she actually wants to do.

Hope that helps explain it a little! I can see it's frustrating when you can't understand the motivation behind why you're being trained that way. Personally, I think she ought to be telling you why she's doing it that way, over and over again so you can really understand the point of it.

In addition, the reason the course seems wooly is because she probably wants to make sure that the course moves with what the trainees want and need, which will be different with every group.

Also, if a lot of the course feels like 'chatting' about your own experiences, this is valuable debriefing time so that you don't all find yourselves debriefing your feeding experiences with the mothers you're helping IYSWIM. We all need to talk about our experiences and it's very difficult to resist doing it when someone says 'I've got mastitis' and you say 'oh I had that...'. Hopefully by doing lots of debriefing during the course, you are in a better position to help mothers when you are a PS.

Very good overview, FlamingoBingo.

I am aware that in some areas, peer supporters are not well-supervised or trained and they are not warned away from advice giving - this can lead to problems, and I have experienced some 'car crashes' of breastfeeding where the mother has been advised by a peer supporter. Peer support training should focus on very basic breastfeeding knowledge and information which of course they can share with people, and knowing how to help a mother get more help if needed. The PS needs to recognise when something is not normal and she needs to have debriefed her own breastfeeding experience. She needs to listen and support and not judge and not assume she knows answers. She needs to have read some basic texts herself and know where to get information from them and other places if needed. She needs to understand the particular bf issues of the mothers in her area.

Indith, your trainer should be able to explain why the emphasis is on not advice giving and by the end of the course you should be able to ask for any gaps to be filled. There's prob a lot of learning goes on when you don't realise it - sharing experiences for example.

thanks for the explanation, I'm a bit happier now. Still have a few concerns (we haven't really debriefed, unless we're doing it bit by bit). Also, I rea;ise we're not there to advise but if we are on a hospital ward and we're not there to help with latch, what are we there to do? I wouldn't havewanted someone to talk to then, I'd have wanted someone to show me stuff!

SPB, you will be debriefing bit by bit and it's a process not an event

Helping with the latch on a hospital ward is (IMO) the last thing a peer supporter should do....yikes. There are people there whose job it is to sort out non-latching babies - midwives. The PS role (as I understand it) is not to show mothers stuff - hopefully this will be covered in your course so you know what you can and can't do.

Peer supporters normally go onto hospital wards to say hello, to publicise support groups, and to signpost the mum for further help. The training is just not sufficient to be dealing with sleepy non-latchers, fighty babies and that sort of thing, IMO.

Thank you for all that, it is very useful

I suppose our main problem is that we really don't know what we will be doing so have not been able to see how what we are learning fits in with that but what you've both written does help to clarify that. I just hope that the pct sorts out what it wants us to do and we get an effective system going where we do gain experience and hopefully access to more training in the future.

Ah, see, peer supporters in our borough can help mums latch on in hospital. Our peer support course does a lot on newborn latch. And the first few times you volunteer in the hospital, you shadow a more experienced supporter.

Interesting, NQC...if the training accommodates this then that's fine.

I think this should be a midwife's job, to be honest, though.

In an ideal world, sure.

But the midwives don't really seem that good at it, at least judging by the women with cracked nipples who were told, over and over, that their latch was 'perfect'. Our borough is doing a lot with BF these days, paid BF supporters on the ward, and paid BF supporters visiting people at home after they have their babies.

But yeah, the peer support training I know of puts a lot of time and effort into newborn position-attachment-latch, and peer supporters do have to demo their competance on a ward before they're totally let loose.