There are a range of referral options for people experiencing perinatal mental health challenges, including counselling services, community-based services, and clinical care options like parent-infant mental health and parenting services.
All expecting and new parents need and deserve access to mental health and wellbeing support during the perinatal period. Ideally, each parents’ community of care includes personal supports (e.g. family and friends) plus a range of healthcare providers supporting all aspects of mental health and wellbeing.
We’ve put together some practical strategies and tools to help you make effective referrals for expecting and new parents that you’re supporting.
Referral and support options at a glance
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Counselling
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Perinatal medicine
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Parent-infant support
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Peer support
Stepped care across perinatal mental health services
Stepped perinatal mental health care spans a broad spectrum of support needs.
People’s support needs often change over time, and they may move between levels of care depending on their individual situation. People’s needs often span multiple levels of the stepped care model. For example, someone might benefit from peer support and self-care strategies during an inpatient admission for mental health.
By referring to (and working with) other integrated services that provide stepped care, you can be highly responsive to the mental health and support requirements of every person in your care.
Below are some examples of perinatal mental health and wellbeing services you can refer to at every level of stepped care. Many health care providers and services work across multiple levels of care.
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Step 1: Self-managed care, health promotion and prevention
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Step 2: Low intensity and primary care support services
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Step 3: Moderate intensity support services
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Step 4: High intensity support services
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Step 5: Acute care and specialist support services
A range of supports can help
People often need different supports for their mental health. Some people may start by accessing a helpline, then see their healthcare provider for a mental health treatment referral, and access online peer support while they are waiting for their first appointment or an admission.
Other people start exploring supports online or self-manage their mental health for many months before accessing mental healthcare services.
In all these scenarios, it’s vital that health care providers keep asking about wellbeing, exploring safety, and discussing preferred ways to manage mental health.
Encourage help seeking
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Identify and address barriers
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Help the person you’re supporting know what to expect
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Follow up
Finding personalised support
Finding personalised support
There are many support options depending on a person’s concerns, circumstances and preferences. Inclusive and personalised care is especially important to people who are:
- Living with a disability
- From a migrant, refugee or asylum seeker background
- Low socioeconomic families
- Neurodiverse parents
Tips for providing inclusive and personalised care
- Ask the person you’re supporting how they feel about mental health care and treatment, and if they have any preferences about how they would like to be supported.
- Consider things like accessibility, literacy and preferred language to inform where you make a referral.
- Discuss any concerns about mental health referral that the person you’re supporting has shared. For example, some people are very concerned about child removal or hospitalisation and these fears can become barriers to supportive care.
- Think outside your usual referral pathways: Is there a service you aren’t familiar with that may be of particular benefit to the person you’re supporting? Ensure referrals are as personalised as possible, for example an Aboriginal person may prefer to be referred to an Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation.
By discussing options and offering choice, you empower the individual and family and may increase the likelihood that they will access treatment that works for them.
“My GP was very empathetic. I was very tearful and exhausted and so grateful that I finally had confided in someone.”
How PANDA can help
PANDA offers a range of support options for parents based on their individual needs. The PANDA Helpline is staffed by peer support practitioners, and counsellors and offers the Intensive Care and Counselling program for individuals needing more intense support.
The PANDA website provides a range of online resources for people to find information on various mental health conditions, understand their feelings and emotions with the Mental Health Checklist, find support options, and practical resources they can use such as grounding exercises and mental health safe plans.
As a healthcare provider, you can also access the secondary consultation service for guidance supporting individuals and families in your care.
Some resources you can share with people in your care:
- PANDA’s Mental Health Checklist. They can print the completed checklist and take it to their healthcare appointment.
Tips from PANDA Community Champions
What did a healthcare provider do in the perinatal period that helped you most with your mental health?
“My psychologist was incredible. Made me feel comfortable to contact her, checked in on me when I didn’t, and even offered a home visit session in those early weeks when I couldn’t fathom getting out of the house. I wish every mother had that sort of support in place.”
“I feel like you could really tell if someone was coming from a lived and learned perspective through genuine connection and honest sharing. Nothing felt more reassuring than another mother in a professional role providing validation and support that was genuine and not straight out of a textbook!”
“My community health nurse with my first baby went ABOVE AND BEYOND. I had terrible latch issues and an oversupply that meant I would near drown my baby and had recurrent mastitis. She supported me through this and validated that an oversupply isn't something that makes me "lucky", like so many others said to me.”
“The nurse and my partner and daughter built a really lovely relationship, it was almost like having another grandparent or Aunty for support.”
“My midwife picked up on how much I was struggling with antenatal anxiety during my second pregnancy and helped me seek support of perinatal psychiatrist through the MBU at the hospital. From there, I was able to get the help and support i needed. She helped me put a birth plan in place and visited me in hospital after her shifts to check-in and see how I was going. Amazing support and a crucial piece of my recovery story.”
“My perinatal mental health worker that was provided through the NSW health system saved my life. She visited my house weekly and was able to pull me out of my isolation and deep depression.”
“One thing that stood out for me was our daughter's Paediatrician, who we saw regularly due to a medical condition. The Paediatrician provided us her email address and invited us to contact her whenever we had a worry or a query about something, which helped me manage my anxiety greatly!”
“They helped me navigate to required support services as well as recovery and treatment options.”
“They explored medication and destigmatised its use.”
“A GP told me it wasn't 'ok' that I felt the way I did 6 months after the birth of my son, countering months of messaging from health professionals that 'all mothers struggle' as a way to tell me just to wait it out and it would get better.”
“My psychiatrist gave me his mobile number. A small thing but I’ve never forgotten it. Just knowing that I could call or text him if things got really bad gave me so much comfort.”
Case Study: Taking the time to build trusting relationships
"An AFPP Family Partnership Worker and I began visiting the client during her pregnancy to help with transport to her antenatal appointments.
These initial visits were a challenge – making contact with our client prior to our arrival was difficult and she was often asleep when we arrived.
After many months of feeling like we were pestering her – and knowing that bub was making good progress – we thought she would like some space to continue on her own.
To the contrary – she asked us to keep visiting every couple of days."