My biggest worry is not piles, or stretch marks. It’s losing my baby again. Do you want to ‘end’ or ‘delete’ your pregnancy? There’s a picture in an app on my phone of a tiny embryo. Apparently, my baby is the size of a peach. Their tiny heart is beating fast. Except it isn’t. I’ve…
Category: Current & Recent Projects
Talking to your child about self-harm and suicide content online – new Samaritans resource published
Samaritans have been building a hub of online safety resources for everyone who might use the internet to seek support or talk about suicide, suicidal feelings and self-harm. The most recent addition is guidance for parents on talking to your child about self-harm and suicide content online. I wrote this for them earlier this year….
APP peer support in the NHS
Ten years of APP peer support Action on Postpartum Psychosis have been offering life-saving peer support to women and their families since 2012. Over the last ten years, I have delivered their peer supporter training sessions and created new resources for them. Their peer support offering has gone from strength to strength. They now offer…
Samaritans guidance for train operating companies
Supporting rail staff to manage remote contacts with vulnerable people Samaritans have just launched a guidance document I wrote for them earlier this year. The document is for people working on customer services or social media platforms at train operating companies across the UK. It provides support and guidance to help them support and signpost…
Miscarriage support book published
My book on how to support someone after a miscarriage, ectopic or molar pregnancy has been published. It has information on miscarriage, ectopic and molar pregnancies, the possible physical and emotional impacts and other related issues. It explores how to talk about them, practical matters, providing ongoing support and helping someone through pregnancy after loss….
Miscarriage Association workplace resources published
The Miscarriage Association has recently published a hub of information and support resources for employees, employers, managers, colleagues and HR staff. After a year spent researching, writing and creating the information, case studies and films, it’s fantastic to see them live. Ironically, I suffered a missed miscarriage during this time. Needless to say the Miscarriage…
Women at Work – presentation and podcast for the Work Body Ready event
1915 In 1915, Margaret Llewelyn Davies edited and published ‘Maternity – Letters From Working Women’. This moving collection of letters from members of the Women’s Co-operative Guild details their experiences of pregnancy, miscarriage, childbirth, stillbirth, infant death and parenting. At the end of every letter was listed the family salary and the number of miscarriages,…
‘Supporting someone you know’ – new Miscarriage Association resource online now
I’m pleased to report that my rewrite of the Supporting someone you know leaflet from the Miscarriage Association is online and in print now. We identified the need to update this resource as part of the pregnancy loss and mental health project – but obviously its application is much wider. We didn’t do any resource-specific…
Workplace mental health hub highly commended at the BMA Patient Information Awards.
In 2017 I developed a content plan and wrote 26 articles for Bupa’s new workplace mental health hub. I used to be a workplace ‘health check’ consultant for Time to Change and I enjoyed using my knowledge and experience of the issues involved to create resources that would help organisations make positive change. All the…
Moderating a Facebook-based peer support group. Training for Hemihelp staff and volunteers
I recently worked with Hemihelp (now part of Contact) to help them with training for volunteer Facebook group moderators for their peer support group on the platform. The group was established in 2007 and became more active in 2011. It has over 5,000 members and over 11,000 interactions each month. It seems to be a…
Pregnancy loss and mental health – new resources online now
I have just finished researching and developing a series of resources around pregnancy loss and mental health for the Miscarriage Association. Research I did extensive desk research and conducted a survey of the Miscarriage Associations supporters and stakeholders. In one week we received 1716 responses from people who self-identified as having had mental health problems…
Community moderation training licensed to Cardiff Women’s Aid
I have recently licensed my community moderation training package to Cardiff Women’s Aid. As part of this three-year licence, they received an initial training session and feedback on participants practice activities, bespoke training resources and trainer’s notes, a train the trainer Skype session and a draft moderation handbook for their ongoing use. I have also…
WRISK – understanding and improving communication of risk during pregnancy
The WRISK project is a collaboration between the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (bpas) and Heather Trickey at the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University. They are aiming to draw on women’s experiences to understand and improve the development and communication of risk messages in pregnancy. They asked me to blog about my experience of…
Co-creating new resources with Action on Postpartum Psychosis
In 2013 I ran a training session for Action on Postpartum Psychosis on giving peer support online as part of their award-winning peer support programme. I’ve been working with them ever since. I’ve done a further five training sessions, including one when heavily pregnant and another four months after Oaklan was born. Now my maternity leave…