A day in the life of a Perinatal Project Administrator

There are 11 of us in the Community Research Assistant Team and two Perinatal Project Administrators. Between us we have set tasks each day, which involve database crosschecking, paperwork, clinics, visits to mums on the maternity wards, taking samples, contacting expectant mums and signposting into Better Start Bradford projects, and outreach work.

Our day normally starts at 7.30am when we check the status of any mums from the Better Start Bradford area that are on the maternity ward. It is so important that we not only double check, but triple check the database to ensure that there have been no complications with any mums that would mean it inappropriate to approach the mum in question.

We haven’t had a day yet when there hasn’t been at least one new mum from the Better Start Bradford area, and the most we’ve had in one day was seven! Quite often the mums can be resting, so often we can have numerous trips to the ward in a day so we don’t disturb their rest.

It’s wonderful chatting to the new mums with their newborn next to them. We work hard to build rapport with them before we start talking to them about breastfeeding support that is available and other Better Start Bradford projects that may benefit them. We can spend over 10 minutes with each mum, sometimes longer as we may have had the mum’s prior permission to take a sample of their hair, which will be sent for testing for stress levels during pregnancy.

We have a really great working relationship with the BRI staff and we help run the Glucose Tolerance Test (GTT) appointments every day from Monday to Friday, which is usually carried out at around 26 weeks of pregnancy. We manage the reception and book all women in and explain the test. This poses a perfect opportunity for us to identify and approach expectant mums eligible for the BiBBS study

At this point, they are asked to consent to using additional blood from that sample for the BiBBS study to measure for diabetes and cholesterol levels, which give us more information about women’s health.

We then take mums to our dedicated BiBBS room at the maternity unit and conduct a one-to-one session of up to 40 minutes, which involves a questionnaire and seeking consent to take a hair sample after the birth of their baby. The hair samples end up at a laboratory in Sweden, where they will be analysed for stress levels throughout the pregnancy.

We also run a GTT clinic at St Luke’s Hospital once a month in partnership with the Clover Team. This team is another project set up by Better Start Bradford, which provides a personalised midwifery service and the same midwife’s care through pregnancy.

We spend the rest of our day doing follow-up calls with expectant mothers that we think may benefit from Better Start Bradford’s ESOL for Pregnancy course, which is a friendly English language course for pregnant women living in the Better Start Bradford area.

We get a really good take up for this as within our team we speak a wide range of languages including Urdu, Punjabi, Arabic, Tamil, Pahari, Mirpuri, Marathi, Romanian, Hungarian and German. Our record is eight referrals in a week.

We also chat to them about the Baby Steps programme, which is offered to expectant parents in the Better Start Bradford area to help them with the transition into parenthood.

And finally, we do follow-up calls with mums that we have met on the wards to remind them of the Breastfeeding Support Service and other Better Start Bradford projects that they may be interested in.

As you can see there is a continuous cycle of elements to keep on top of within our role. This involves lots of organised management, paperwork and logging and triple checking of information in between face-to-face contact with the expectant and post-birth mums, and the numerous trips around the hospital between clinics, maternity wards and the laboratories – we certainly get our daily steps in!

Better Start Bradford would like to say a huge thanks to Rifat, Miryam, Saiqa and Shazaeb for taking the time out of a very busy day to tell us all about the work that their team does.

How the Perinatal Project Administrator role is expanding its reach within Bradford’s Start For Life Programme

The learning from the BiBBS Community Research Assistant Team and the Perinatal Project Administrators has demonstrated how vital the role of the Perinatal Project Administrator is. Learning has demonstrated how this model has been intrinsic in referring women and families into the BiBBS cohort and Better Start Bradford projects.

This learning has now been transferred and shared more widely within the Bradford district, with the Perinatal Project Administrator role being embedded in other areas within the district to support the Start for Life Programme, to enable signposting and referral of women and families into to district-wide services to support their transition to parenthood within their local area.

Bradford district’s Family Hubs and Start for Life Programme involve a number of partners who are working together to ensure a seamless and joined up offer is made available for families. The partnership includes Bradford Council, Bradford and Craven Health and Care Partnership, the district care trust and Bradford and Airedale Hospital Trusts, Better Start Bradford and a number of local voluntary sector organisations.

Bradford is one of 75 local authorities that received a share of the £301.75 million Family Hubs and Start for Life Programme funding package for the period 2022–2025.