About us
Working in the midst of family life
Au Milieu provides therapeutic support for babies and their parents, and trains the professionals around them. Everything we do aims to give babies the best possible start, through the relationships that matter most.
The first relationship shapes everything
Before a baby can talk, walk or play, they are learning from the people who hold them. Warm, responsive care lays the foundations for how a child learns, copes and relates to others for the rest of their life. When that bond is under strain, through poverty, trauma or a parent’s mental ill health, the effects can last well into adulthood. Help in the first 1001 days can change that, yet almost no families can get it.
Up to 45%
of UK babies may develop insecure or disorganised attachment to the people who care for them.
Only 1.5 to 6%
of families who need specialist parent-infant support can currently get it.
£6 to £10
saved for every £1 invested in support for parents and babies.
That is the gap Au Milieu works in. We offer free infant-parent psychotherapy to families in South West London, from pregnancy until their baby turns two, and we train the practitioners this work needs.
Source: Centre for Mental Health and Parent-Infant Foundation, Why babies’ first relationships matter (2026).
Our name
Why ‘Au Milieu’?
A milieu is the social environment a person lives and grows in. Au Milieu means ‘in the midst’. It describes how we work: hands-on, alongside families, within the context of their lives and communities.
Our mission is to shape the mental health and wellbeing of infants and their families through timely and effective early intervention.
Au Milieu
Our two goals
- To train and equip professionals with the specialist skills needed to work with the delicate relationship between infants and parents.
- To provide specialist therapy for parents who are struggling to bond with their babies, during pregnancy and in the first two years of life.
Our story
Travel to learn, return to inspire
Au Milieu was founded by Dr Yvonne Osafo, a psychoanalytic infant-parent psychotherapist (UKCP) from Mitcham. In 2016 a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travelling Fellowship took her to Czechia, Norway, Sweden and the USA to study best practice in infant-parent psychotherapy, under the Churchill motto ‘travel to learn, return to inspire’.
Churchill grant funding then supported a pilot infant-family clinic offering IPP to low-income and high-risk families, informed by Yvonne’s doctoral research in psychoanalytic parent-infant psychotherapy.
Before founding Au Milieu, Yvonne was consultant to the setting up of the Croydon Parent-Infant Partnership, where she was Clinical Lead from 2015 to 2020.
Today she works with a specialist team of infant-parent psychotherapists, clinicians and guest lecturers.
How we work
Close to families, alongside other professionals
- We work closely with the wider team of professionals in each borough who support babies and their families.
- We offer a warm, safe space for therapy, at home, online or in community settings such as children’s centres, hospitals and voluntary sector services.
- Our service is led by the needs of each parent.
- All our practitioners work to the same principles and approaches.
- We use validated tools and measures to capture the impact of our work.
Our services
What we offer families and professionals
Infant-parent psychotherapy
Therapy for parents and babies together, to help them build the best possible relationship.
Video Interaction Guidance
Short films of everyday moments with your baby, watched together to notice and build on what is going well.
Attachment therapy
Specialist support for fostered and adopted children and the adults who care for them.
Consultation and training
Specialist parent-infant consultation and training for teams who work with babies.
Clinical supervision
Supervision for professionals working with low-income, high-risk parents-to-be and parents of babies up to 24 months.
Downloads
Forms and leaflets
Brochure
Our mission, services, how we work and who can be referred. For professionals and partners.
Leaflet for parents
What we do, who we help and how to get in touch. Good to give to a family.
Course leaflet
The Postgraduate Diploma in Infant-Parent Psychotherapy at a glance.
Referral form
Fill it in on screen, tick the boxes and type your signature, then email it to team@au-milieu.org.
Concerned about your baby?
You don’t need a diagnosis, or to be in crisis, to talk to us. Email the team and we’ll reply within 48 hours.