Mothers for Mothers Treefest 2020: Filling the Gaps
Since 1981 Mothers for Mothers has supported families affected by maternal mental health issues across Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset. We support women during pregnancy and until their youngest child attends school, from illness to wellness, through four arms of our support services: Reach helpline/support calls, Home Visiting, Art Psychotherapy and Counselling, and Peer Support Groups with a play support worker. Our four services work together to provide peer support, promoting wellbeing and reducing social isolation to ensure women and children are well, enjoy healthy relationships and can engage in the wider community.
Our services are developed and delivered by women with lived experience. Our staff and volunteers are women of lived experience and are passionate about the importance of the work we do and the needs of the families we work with.
We aim to achieve the following outcomes for the women and families we work with:
• Improved confidence, resilience and relationships with children and family, leading to faster recovery.
• Improving children’s emotional development by supporting Mothers to be sensitive and responsive in their relationships with their children
• Reduced social isolation and improved social and support networks.
• More awareness of Perinatal Mental Illness and the support available.
• Improved care and services for maternal mental illness.
This year our Treefest entry aims to represent an aspect of our work with clients in 'filling the gaps'. Many of the women and families we support have slipped through the gaps of statutory services, perhaps especially so during the COVID-19 pandemic. During this very challenging year we have been able to offer the families we support the appropriate care they deserve. Our tree, decorated with hollow perspex baubles, each one filled by one of our staff, volunteers, or the families we work with, symbolises the important role we have played in filling the gaps for families during this time. There are also baubles for our funders who have supported the changes we have had to make to how our services have been delivered during these restrictions.
