Due to our own personal experiences of neonatal care we understand and empathise with families who find themselves in similar circumstances. Our primary focus is on supporting the whole family, practically and emotionally from admission to the neonatal unit and beyond, working collaboratively with our NHS colleagues and other services.

Spoons Neonatal Family Support was founded in 2015 by Kirsten Mitchell, our Operations Manager, following the premature birth of her son in 2014. Spoons at the time was a support group for families, created as a response to the lack of support available for families experiencing neonatal care.

What started in 2015 as a Facebook group for families who had been on the neonatal unit at one hospital in Manchester, has now become a thriving community of neonatal families from across Greater Manchester. We now offer a range of services to support families that we could have only have dreamed of back in 2015.

Spoons will be 10 years old next year! So we thought it was a great time to refresh our vision and values, to ensure we continue to live by our founding principles as we grow to meet the needs of our community.

We’ve spent the last few months co-creating the following vision, values and principles with input from people in our community and our partners, take a look and let us know what you think…