“Maternity Voices Partnerships will want to promote themselves widely”
Implementing Better Births: A Resource Pack for Local Maternity Systems
An established Maternity Voices Partnership (MVP) will be using multiple communication channels in order to ensure that a wide range of women and families are able to get involved. These could include:
- Social media
- Printed leaflets
- Word of mouth (staff and service user members telling others about the MVP)
- Community outreach – e.g. attending events
- Web site
- Newsletter
- Media engagement (especially targeted at any minority groups within the community)
- Notice boards, e.g. in the hospital maternity wards or children’s centres
- Translated materials
- Videos
- Online Q&As or live chats
- Communication to staff, e.g. through newsletters or notice boards.
Communication managers in provider and commissioner organisations may be able to help with MVP communication and advise on making communication accessible.
Using plain English and avoiding jargon or unnecessarily technical terms can help to ensure MVP communication is accessible. There will sometimes be different views amongst MVP members about what language is most respectful or inclusive. Discussion in an MVP meeting can help to understand these different perspectives and there may be times when it’s helpful to seek views from service users in the community or from specific community groups.
We’d like to link to some examples of communications and outreach here. Does your MVP have any examples that are working well in your locality? If you’d be happy for this to be shared in the final version of the toolkit, please send it to hannah@nationalmaternityvoices.org.uk. Please say if you would prefer your resource to be anonymised. Thank you