Supporting parents before nursery and beyond: in conversation with ParentPath

At Kinsail, our work begins when a parent returns from leave and needs their nursery place to be affordable. But we have always believed that supporting parents cannot start and stop at the nursery gate. The journey into parenthood begins long before a child's first day at nursery, and the transition back to work is one of the hardest parts of it. That belief is why we wanted to speak with ParentPath.

ParentPath is a workplace midwifery network founded by Richard and Rachael, a brother and sister team combining clinical maternity expertise with commercial and operational experience. Their platform connects parents with qualified midwives and healthcare professionals throughout pregnancy, parental leave and the return to work, and gives employers a genuine way to support their people through one of the biggest transitions of their lives.

We believe in what they are building. Where Kinsail helps make childcare affordable once a parent is back at work, ParentPath supports families in the months before and after, filling the gap between NHS maternity care and workplace support. We caught up with the founders to talk about why the workplace is the missing piece of maternity support, what employers most often get wrong, and where parental support is heading.

ParentPath is a brother and sister founding team, which is unusual. How did the two of you come to build this together, and what does each of you bring?

Richard: It really started with my experience of becoming a parent. Having Rachael as both a sister and a midwife meant my wife and I had access to something many parents don't: someone we trusted who could answer our questions, provide reassurance and help navigate important decisions. As we compared that experience with that of friends and colleagues, we realised it wasn't the norm.

Rachael: My experience as a midwife has shown me that continuity of care, personalised support and trusted relationships are incredibly important for women and their families. But this level of care is increasingly difficult to access within an overstretched healthcare system where midwives don't have the capacity to provide the level of care families need and deserve.

Richard: One conversation particularly stayed with us when we discussed: why isn't this available to everyone? The more we explored that question, the more we realised there was an opportunity to complement existing maternity services with the continuity, reassurance and personalised support that so many families are looking for.

Rachael: We're fortunate that, as siblings, we bring complementary skill sets to the business. I bring over a decade of clinical expertise and understanding of maternity care, while Richard brings commercial, operational and business growth experience. Together, we're making expert parental support more accessible to families, healthcare professionals and employers.

Rachael, you spent years as a practising midwife. What did you see in that role that convinced you the workplace was the missing piece of maternity support?

For me, it started from my experience of supporting women transition to becoming mothers. It is such a life changing experience that impacts how families go on to thrive or not. The support they receive throughout pregnancy and early parenthood really impacts their experience of this.

One thing that kept coming up in conversations with families was work; it's a huge part of someone's life. Alongside questions about pregnancy and birth, there were concerns about childcare, finances, confidence in speaking to managers and balancing family life with work. NHS maternity services do a great job, but they simply aren't designed to support families beyond birth, throughout parental leave and the return to work.

The more I listened and really considered how we can better support families, the more obvious it became that support has to be personal and it needs to extend across the whole parental journey. The workplace is a clear gap in how we deliver this consistent support.

Richard, what was the moment you realised this was a business rather than just a good idea?

The moment I realised this was a great concept for a business was when I started talking to people about it. The reaction was almost always the same: 'That's such a good idea.' What surprised me wasn't that people liked the concept, it was that they assumed it already existed.

The more conversations we had, the more obvious it became that parents, healthcare professionals and employers were all describing the same problem from different angles. Parents wanted more support. Healthcare professionals wanted more time with families they cared for. Employers wanted better outcomes and staff wellbeing. Nobody was disagreeing on the problem; they just weren't connected.

I also knew from my own experience that I would have happily paid for a service like this. At that point, it stopped feeling like an idea and started feeling like a real opportunity. There was a clear need for something that connected healthcare, parents and employers in a way that simply didn't exist.

Most employers would say they already support parents. What are they actually missing?

Most employers genuinely care and want to do the right thing. The challenge isn't employer intent. It's knowing what meaningful support actually looks like. Workplace support can often become focused on policies, processes and compliance.

Policies don't always account for when someone is worried about a pregnancy complication, struggling with confidence, navigating a difficult birth experience or trying to work out how they're going to manage the transition back to work. What we've learned is that many parents aren't looking for another policy document. They're looking for someone with knowledge and experience that they can trust.

The employers doing this well recognise that supporting parents is about more than managing leave. It's about helping people feel informed, supported and confident throughout the experience.

What does the gap between NHS maternity care and workplace support look like in practice for a pregnant employee?

It often means parents feel like they're carrying everything themselves. Healthcare understands one part of their life and employers understand another, but nobody is looking at the whole picture. The systems simply weren't designed to work together.

Parents can find themselves trying to join the dots between different services, professionals and sources of advice at a time when they need clear and consistent support most. This can leave many parents feeling isolated despite being surrounded by people who genuinely care and want to help.

That's the gap ParentPath was built to address by creating continuity across the entire journey, ensuring parents have access to trusted support from pregnancy through to their return to work.

What do new parents tell you is the hardest part of the journey, and does it match what employers assume it is?

If we had to pick one thing, it would probably be confidence. Most people expect practical challenges. They know there will be sleepless nights, endless decisions and a huge adjustment period. What often catches them off guard is how much becoming a parent changes them and the emotional impact, particularly on confidence.

One thing we've learned is that parenthood isn't usually a lack-of-information problem. Most parents can find information. What they're often looking for is reassurance that they're making the right decisions for themselves, their baby and their family.

Interestingly, that doesn't always match what employers assume. Employers often focus on the practical aspects of parental leave and returning to work, whereas parents frequently talk about confidence, uncertainty and the emotional side of becoming a parent.

What does a workplace midwifery network actually look like day to day?

At its heart, it's about making sure parents have access to trusted support when they need it, but it's also designed to make that support easy to access for everyone involved.

For parents, it means they can connect with midwives and qualified healthcare professionals, book appointments, access resources and receive personalised guidance throughout pregnancy, parental leave and their return to work. For organisations, managers gain practical tools and guidance and HR teams gain oversight and reporting.

In the wider network, healthcare professionals can manage clients, deliver continuity of care in a flexible way and collaborate with other specialists. What brings it all together is that everyone is connected through the same platform. ParentPath becomes the central hub for the entire parental journey, bringing expertise, resources and support together in one place.

Why midwives specifically, rather than coaches or general wellbeing support?

Midwives are already part of some of the most important moments in people's lives. Their role extends far beyond clinical care and includes listening, educating, reassuring and helping families navigate uncertainty.

We built ParentPath around midwives because they combine healthcare expertise with the relationship-building and continuity that parents value most. By combining a network of qualified midwives with technology, resources and a wider community of healthcare professionals, we're able to provide a level of ongoing support that simply isn't available through traditional maternity services alone.

Excitingly, the network is continually evolving and we are seeing a wider variety of healthcare professionals who care for parents wanting to join our platform which will continue to increase the breadth of support we can offer parents.

How do HR teams typically respond when you explain the offer? What is the most common objection, and how do you answer it?

Most HR leaders understand the impact that pregnancy, parental leave and returning to work can have on wellbeing, engagement and retention because they're already dealing with it within their organisations, they see it first-hand.

Many employers genuinely want to do more for parents, but they also recognise that they aren't maternity specialists, and they shouldn't have to be.

The most common question isn't whether the problem exists. It's whether organisations already provide enough support through existing benefits. Our answer is that ParentPath isn't designed to replace those benefits. It fills the gap between healthcare, workplace support and the parental experience itself.

The return to work is where so many employers lose people. What makes the difference between a parent who comes back and stays, and one who quietly leaves within a year?

The biggest difference is whether someone feels supported as a person rather than managed as a process. The organisations doing this well recognise that returning to work isn't a single event; it's a transition.

Many parents return to work having gone through one of the biggest changes of their lives. A successful return requires more than a meeting in the diary and a checklist of actions. What makes the biggest difference is communication. The best employers create opportunities for open conversations, understand individual circumstances and help parents feel informed and confident about what comes next.

Ultimately, successful returns aren't created in the week before someone comes back. They're shaped by the quality of support and communication they receive throughout the entire parental journey.

What role does childcare play in that decision, and how early in the journey are parents thinking about it?

A huge one. Parents often start thinking about childcare during pregnancy, long before they return to work. What we've seen is that childcare decisions often shape many other decisions that follow. It influences when they return, how many days they work and whether flexible working is needed.

For many families, childcare isn't just another consideration; it's one of the foundations that everything else is built around. That's why the most successful returns to work tend to start well before someone's leave is coming to an end. The earlier parents can begin thinking about childcare, planning their return and understanding the options available to them, the more confident and prepared they tend to feel.

If you could change one thing about how UK employers handle the parental transition, what would it be?

We'd encourage employers to see it as a transition rather than an absence. Too much focus is placed on administration, dates and processes. Naturally, there is a lot of focus on leave dates, handovers and cover arrangements. Those things are important, but they only represent a small part of what's actually happening.

Becoming a parent affects confidence, priorities, identity, relationships and, for many people, how they think about work and their future career. Yet the support provided by employers is often concentrated around the administrative aspects of leave rather than the human experience behind it.

What we've learned is that parents don't remember whether a form was completed on time. They remember how they were treated and how supported they felt. The organisations that do this well understand the human experience behind the paperwork and create environments where parents feel genuinely understood and supported.

Where do you see workplace parental support heading over the next few years?

Ten years ago, mental health support was often seen as a nice-to-have. Today, it's an expected part of the employee experience. We think parental support is following a similar path.

We think expectations are already changing. Parents are looking for more personalised, practical and accessible support throughout their journey, while employers are becoming more aware of the connection between parental experiences, wellbeing, engagement and retention. Policies and compliance will always matter, but they're increasingly becoming the baseline rather than the differentiator.

Ultimately, we'd like to see a future where access to expert parental support is considered a normal part of the employee experience rather than an exception. The organisations that embrace that shift early are likely to be the ones that attract, retain and support the best people.

What's next for ParentPath?

The immediate focus is on launching and scaling the platform, growing our network of healthcare professionals and partnering with more employers. But those are milestones rather than the final goal.

We want ParentPath to become the place parents turn to throughout their journey. A platform that connects families with trusted healthcare professionals, gives employers a better way to support their people and creates new opportunities for healthcare professionals to practise in a more flexible and meaningful way.

We're still at the beginning, but the ambition is simple: to build a future where no parent feels like they're navigating pregnancy, parental leave or the return to work alone. Our success won't be measured by the size of the platform, but by the number of families who have access to the kind of support every parent deserves.

For an HR leader reading this who wants to do better for expectant parents, what is the single first step?

Before investing in new initiatives, benefits or programmes, take the time to understand the experience you're trying to improve. Talk to parents. Not through surveys or policy reviews, but through genuine conversations with people who have lived the experience.

Those conversations can be incredibly powerful because they move the discussion beyond policies and processes and into the real experiences of employees. They often reveal the gap between the support organisations think they're providing and the support parents actually need. You'll learn more from a handful of honest conversations than you will from any benchmark report.

Why this matters to us

ParentPath and Kinsail sit at different points on the same journey. ParentPath supports parents through pregnancy, leave and the return to work; Kinsail makes the nursery place they come back to genuinely affordable through the workplace nursery benefit. Both start from the same conviction: that supporting parents is about the whole experience, not a single moment or a single policy. We are glad to share their story, and we look forward to seeing where they take it.

You can find out more about ParentPath at their website.