This is one of two posts highlighting the meaningful contributions made by charities and Community Interest Companies that support Parental Mental Health Day, aligned with SDG 3 goal: "Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages", and to the related key targets. 

 Gill has worked at the Mental Health Foundation since May 2022, delivering projects on perinatal and youth mental health. She co-develops resources and information with communities, creating podcasts, videos, toolkits and frameworks for practitioners. Drawing on her background in the arts, youth work and long-term conditions, Gill leads engaging participation work and produces co-created materials for professionals. She is also a mum to two boys and has lived experience of perinatal mental health challenges.

Where’s the village? By Gillian Meens, Lived Experience Manager at Mental Health Foundation

We all know the saying, ‘it takes a village’, but the reality is that most parents are wondering where it is. Particularly for those facing inequalities, parenting alone, living rurally, experiencing mental health challenges, stigma, and discrimination.

In early 2022, many families emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic had experienced the sharpest end of these inequalities (Lombardo et al., 2023). At the Mental Health Foundation, we began scoping research for our programmatic work and identified that lone parents in the perinatal period were particularly impacted. Parents identified a gap in support during pregnancy and a lack of support groups and connections with other parents that they felt safe and comfortable attending – the perception being that the groups that already existed were for someone else, not them.

In June that year, we began the Small Talk project to understand and look to create solutions to fill this gap. We recruited 7 organisations to work alongside us to better understand the need, and co-create and test resources. They were Amma Birth Companions, Dads Rock, Govan HELP, One Parent Families Scotland, Mind Mosaic Child and Family Therapies, NSPCC Together for Childhood, and Smithycroft Secondary Young Parents Support Base.

With our partner organisations, we conducted a training needs analysis with their staff and volunteer teams and found that most had received training on mental health and wellbeing and that they had knowledge of trauma-informed practice. However, there was a gap in confidence in delivering work around mental health and wellbeing. There was also little appreciation for the impact on well-being of much of their existing support to families, either because they didn’t see that as ‘mental health work’ or because there was no mechanism for evaluating this. However, there was widespread recognition of the impact of circumstances on families and that if housing and finances were unstable, then they couldn’t have other conversations, such as around wellbeing. Yet they also reported seeing a sharper increase in families experiencing crisis than ever before, and that frontline roles had shifted significantly as a result, leaving staff feeling ill-equipped for what they were being asked to provide.

We therefore decided to deliver the project over two phases. The first was focused on our project partners, their staff and volunteers, through delivering training and a peer learning exchange. The second was developing and testing a resource and framework with those organisations which was then shared publicly. The aim being to improve staff and volunteer confidence, skills, knowledge and peer support in order to enhance perinatal peer support delivery to diverse groups and create a resource for their use and sharing beyond the project. The resulting framework combines the learning from the two.

In phase one, partner organisations had training and reflection sessions on: facilitation, managing and supporting volunteers, coproduction, using a rights-based approach, reach and inclusion, creativity and play, trauma-informed relationships approach, organisational sustainability and impact, and having confident conversations about mental health and wellbeing. These sessions, alongside the practitioner's reflections, form the first part of the Small Talk resource or the ‘Core Principles’.  

In phase two, project partners tested workshop delivery through the ‘Session Plans’ and implemented the approach outlined in ‘Essential Ingredients’. Feedback from parents and practitioners formed the final version of the framework. Parents told us that coming together through trusted organisations to do some focused work had a positive impact on their mental health and wellbeing.  One parent shared, “The toolkit will be good to look back at when I need it. I'll take away the importance of taking time to think about myself.” Another shared, “I use some of the things we have worked on to self-soothe and regulate my emotions. I know what's out there and what can help me.”

Practitioners also provide feedback on the helpfulness of the content and how they were able to adapt it to their groups and sessions. Practitioners told us that they “Found the length of sessions was timed well so as not to be overwhelming to the parents or ask too much of their attention span.” And “I think the sessions were good, they generated some really good discussions from the Dads I ran it with. It was good that they weren't very resource-heavy and could be organised and set up quite dynamically. Using scenarios to link the Toolkit into is good because it takes pressure off the participants, it doesn't bring their personal experiences into it, which makes them feel a bit safer to share ideas and tips.”

Those who took part in the project and through the organisations have reported an improvement in their connection to others and the resources that they have to manage the challenges they may face as parents. For organisations that want to be able to provide this for more parents, the resource is available for free online and can be used and adapted to set up more spaces for parents to find their village.

Poster by Getty Images. Credit: Mike Kemp / Contributor