Perinatal mental health: awareness and support

I spend much of my time campaigning for better perinatal mental health services, working with some inspirational alliances (you can read about those on the campaigns page). However, I am also involved with many initiatives aimed at raising awareness about maternal mental illness and providing support. Even if we had comprehensive clinical perinatal mental health services nationally, we would still need community resources, such as peer support. I am linked to a number of maternal mental health groups and charities and help provide support and information through collaborative social media projects. You can discover more about these ventures on this page.

National support groups

It is an honour to be associated with a number of excellent not-for-profit support groups and charities across the UK.

Local support groups

At a local level, you may find that there is a maternal mental health support group, whose aim will be to provide help for mothers and families in the community. An excellent way to locate services near you in England can be found on the interactive map created by the Hearts & Minds Patnership.

Peer support is a valuable tool, and there is probably no better expertise than lived-experience. However, it is important that support groups (especially those run by local charities) have formal safeguarding policies to protect the people being supported, and those doing the supporting. This includes ensuring that leaders are currently well, and have mental health training, supervision, mentoring, crisis response, and child protection training. Here are a few examples of some excellent local support groups:

Support and information for fathers

All too often, husbands and partners are overlooked when it comes to providing support and information. You can discovery more about my work in that area, and about the services that are available, on the fathers page.

Social media and Internet support services

In this age of accessible internet across a range of devices, online support services are becoming increasingly popular. Many charity groups are using secure and anonymous portals to provide support.

One danger of online support services is knowing what information can be trusted. In light of that Best Beginnings (the pregnancy and infancy charity) have created the excellent Baby Buddy app to support families experiencing perinatal mental health problems. All of those resources are sanctioned by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. I helped Best Beginnings develop those resources.

Another key tool for support and advice is through social media. Many charity and support groups have closed or secret Facebook pages, where they can offer support in an environment where may feel safer to talk openly. Public social media platforms can also be used to campaign, share awareness and signpots to support.