What Close-Knit Families did in 2025.

What Close-Knit Families did in 2025

Welcome to our annual round up of the year!

Let’s keep it real. Maybe you feel a bit like the imperfect image below right now—we get it, we’ve been there too. 2025 has been a year of both joy and challenge for Close-Knit Families. Today we’re sharing the highlights, but we know it hasn’t all been easy or lovely.

(Parents, check out our socials for simple ways you can connect with your little one and take care of you this season)

We remain committed to our mission of helping babies and the people around them build supportive relationships and positive experiences—working with babies, their parents and carers, professionals, and the wider community.

2025: A great year

Supporting babies and those who care for them in Teesside

We continue to work in the community delivering sessions and sharing resources with families. Our ‘Baby Connections’ session helps parents and carers to bond with their baby, support their baby’s development and look after their wellbeing while they care for their baby. 

This year we have worked alongside partners such as Family Action South Tees Perinatal Support Service, North Tees Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership, South Tees Maternity and Neonatal Voices Partnership, the Genesis Project, Creative Minds, Thrive at Five and many others. 

Parents say:

‘It was a very relaxed and good session. I learned about different ways to bond with my baby.’

‘I’ve heard things that I’ve never heard before, I now understand the importance of talking to my baby for his development’

(I will now…)

’Talk to my kids as much as possible’

‘Love and care about myself first so I can love my baby’

We have continued to work with River Tees Multi Academy Trust year 11 pupils explaining why early relationships and experiences are important for babies, featuring practical activities and use of duplo to engage and embed learning. 95% say they would recommend the session go to other schools (can’t win them all) with pupils saying they will now ‘explain more to babies with my words and actions ‘make sure they know I am a safe place’ ‘interact more’

Impacting families through our resources in Teesside and beyond

We are delighted that Children North East’s ‘Little Minds in Mind’ a parent infant therapy service are licensed to share our ‘Baby Connections’ animation with families. The service will share the video with families in Newcastle to support bonding, attachment and healthy brain development.

Michelle Reid, Team Manager says ‘It is a perfect resource to share our message about brain development and infant mental health. It's accessible for the families we work with and delivered sensitively.’

They join seven other organisations who are sharing our ‘Baby Connections’ video with potentially over 3,000 families. 

We have worked in partnership with the South Tees Baby Essentials project, ensuring 90 vulnerable families can benefit from our parent packs which are distributed via the South Tees Vulnerabilities Midwifery team and baby banks. These packs include visual and printed resources to support parents understanding about baby development, parent wellbeing and the parent and baby relationship. 

We also launched our ‘Your Well-being Plan’ which is a guide, helping parents to think what will help, who can help and how they can help them in the baby years, this is available free on our website for parents and practitioners. 

Making a difference through strengthening practice and supporting practitioners 

This year we have worked with over 280 practitioners from across the UK including training Home-Start Teesside workforce and University Hospital North Tees Special Care Baby unit staff with consistently positive feedback. 

‘Close-Knit Families share key important messages such as the importance of connecting with their babies as this is the platform for the future of the family. The training focuses on the importance of those initial connections and interactions, looking at what can be done in the neonatal environment to support those connections.’ Sarah Brooks- Northern Neonatal Care Coordinator

‘I feel all services who work with families should do this training’ Molly Tuffery, Home-Start Teesside Family Support Co-ordinator

We have spoken at a range of events, including the recent Connect360 gathering, where Beth highlighted why early relationships matter and how we can all play a part in being ‘the village’ for babies and parents. 

If your are interested in having Close-Knit Families speak at your event please get in touch. The income we generate from sales of workshops and video licenses enables us to carry out our core work which is harder to get grant funding for.

Would you like to access Close-Knit training for your workforce, volunteers, school or families you work with? Find out more

Beth chairs the South Tees Baby Bank partnership which meets three times a year and creates opportunity to connect professionals and services who are meeting babies’ and families’ basic needs in the area, to identify any gaps and work together for solutions to help give babies a better start.

Advocating for babies and those who care for them

We take every opportunity to advocate for babies and those who care for them, we have been involved in some cross-sector work to reduce child poverty in the Tees Valley, working alongside the North East Child Poverty Commission, watch this space to see how the work develops in 2026. 

Coming Spring 2026: The Village

Speaking of 2026, thanks to generous donations and grant funding we’re excited to launch ‘The Village’ a new group in Redcar supporting parents, carers and babies during and after pregnancy with free, welcoming sessions helping parents connect with their babies, meet other families and access support.  Stay tuned for more information coming soon!

Want to keep up to date with Close-Knit Families projects, sessions and events? Sign up to our mailing list

Can you help?

Can you help us on our mission to give babies positive relationships & experiences?

Can you spread the word & share about our resources & training with friends, family, colleagues & organisations? 

Close-Knit Families continues to benefit babies, their families and those who around them in 2026 because of the grants & donations from generous people and awards like ‘Unltd’ , the Goshen Trust and Linthorpe WI, we so appreciate any and every donation we receive. 

Can you donate to the work of Close-Knit Families? Find out more here

Could you help us through fundraising for Close-Knit? 

It could be something crazy like a skydive or something potentially less stressful like a sponsored walk– get in touch with us here.

THANK YOU

We are a small charity with big dreams, we are so thankful to be here still, making a difference where we can and we are so thankful to YOU, for your part in the Close-Knit Families story whether that is as a parent, practitioner, organisation lead, funder, partner or general Close-Knit fan.

A special thank you to the Close-Knit Families team who are always busy doing good; Close-Knit volunteers’ time, skills, support and wisdom are much appreciated!

We hope you have a Merry Christmas and get to rest and have fun with loved ones.

We are taking a break and will be back to it on Monday 5th January 2026.

With love,

Beth and the Close-Knit Families team