Wandsworth Care Alliance

Better mental health support for Mums in Wandsworth

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Having children is celebrated as a joyful time full of celebration, but for many, becoming a parent can be destabilising, lonely, and even life-threatening. MBRRACE’s recent report shows that 40% of all maternal deaths (occurring between six weeks and a year after the end of pregnancy) are from mental health related causes. Maternal suicide is the biggest cause of perinatal deaths.

At Wandsworth Care Alliance we’ve been doing health studies and talking to local community organisations to find out more about these issues since 2022. We aim to start a bigger conversation about mental health support for mums and birthing parents, connecting people with the support services they need. For the last 2 years we have been building a healthwatch report on the impact of perinatal mental health, and the way parents access mental health services during this time.

When we spoke to 13 birthing parents from ethnically diverse backgrounds, we found that many didn’t ask for help with their mental health. Issues included not feeling safe to open up with healthcare professionals, experiences of discrimination, and not knowing who to turn to.

Read the latest report

A range of factors affected parents during this time, like having a partner for support, having a positive relationship with maternity staff, and 50% of participants claimed that poor housing negatively affected their mental health.

What next?

There is local mental health support available for parents. However, we’re finding out that people might not know where to find it or how to access it.

Talking to the NHS about working together on discussing this issue as part of maternity services will be key over the coming months but there is also action we can take together to make sure that people know where to get support.

Here are 3 support links you can use or share with parents.

Family support

Little Village story

“When having a baby you need a lot of stuff,” Jen, the Tooting baby bank manager. Jen first found the baby bank Little Village when she was looking to donate items her child had grown out of. She started volunteering and fell in love with the cause.

Not everybody has everything they need as a parent and Little Village offers free support bundles to Mums in need, with clothes, toys, bassinets and more, available to be delivered, or picked out in their shop experience.

Little Village pride themselves in giving more than just things, with a creche, space to talk and a signposting team. They often hear shocking stories of adversity from local Mums. This Winter, they’ve had more emergency calls from St. George’s Hospital for Mums who can’t be discharged from hospital because they have nothing for the baby to wear or sleep in. Little Village always needs donations and volunteers to deliver this vital work.

Volunteer

Donate

Free Events & Support for Mums

  • Breathe Melodies know that mental health makes a difference and offer informal Mother and Child singing sessions which are a great way to build bonds and share culture too. Find out more
  • Enable offer free fitness classes for Mums every week
  • Estate Arts are holding a free Baby & Me morning on 3rd February with life support training
  • The NHS are promoting early learning and development activity ideas on the Better Start for Life website. Click here

Do you have more resources to share on this story for local Mums? Email communications@wandcareall.org.uk so we can feel each other’s support.

Farewell to our VSCS Manager, Julie Bristow

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We wanted to let you know that Julie Bristow, the Voluntary Sector Coordination Service Manager, who has run the VSCS since it started in 2020 is leaving WCA this week. 

Julie said: “I want to thank all the organisations within the voluntary and community sector for the support and engagement you have had with the VSCS over the last four years.  It has been a really enjoyable and rewarding experience working with and alongside you all and witnessing first-hand the incredible contribution you have made, and continue to make, to Wandsworth and its residents.  I am sure you will go from strength to strength and rest assured that the Voluntary Sector Coordination Service will continue to inform, connect and support you as you go forward into 2024.”

Free training and development round up

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We share upcoming opportunities for the voluntary sector to connect and upskill for free.

Skills for collaboration

This free lunch time webinar delivered by PCC will explore:

  • What is collaboration?
  • An overview of the interpersonal skills needed for collaborative working to thrive.
  • The benefits of collaborative working 

Book here for the 60-minute free workshop:

Communicating Impact

Dunhill Medical Trust is partnering with the team at Moore Kingston Smith Non-Profit Advisory and the University of Birmingham’s School of Social Policy to deliver high quality training. The programme is aimed particularly at community-facing organisations working to support older people to thrive in safe, healthy, and well-connected homes and communities.

Their first free webinar – which will be on Impact – will take place on November 28th. This webinar will be run by Karl Leathem, from Moore Kingston Smith Non-Profit Advisory who has worked with hundreds of community-facing organisations over twenty-five years, assisting them with evaluating and communicating social impact.

For more information click here. Or email sarah.allport@dunhillmedical.org.uk to book a place.

How to get press coverage

On Thursday 23rd November, the council are hosting a ‘How to get press coverage’ for your business (organisation) event at Tooting Works, with journalist Rebecca Burn-Callander former enterprise editor of the Daily Telegraph. The link to book is here.

Skills and Employment Practitioners’ Share Best Practice

The South London Skills & Employment Community of Practice meet to share best practice with quarterly one hour sessions online. Aims are:

  • Help strengthen the understanding of the skills and employment support available in South London.
  • Identify funding opportunities and support consortium applications to bring more funding into the sub-region.
  • Upskill yourselves and others through sharing of best practice.

Who’s invited?

Anyone delivering programmes or hoping to connect with skills and employment practitioners across South London. Including adult education providers, community based practitioners & VCS representatives, JCPs, employment support providers, external signposting organisations, social prescribers, borough employment practitioners and training providers.

27th November 2-3pm

Click to register your interest, or find out further information, please contact admin@southlondonpartnership.co.uk.

Inclusive family financial education

free funded workshops for practitioners to help children and families learn about money. The training is delivered by the Campaign for Learning and is funded by the Money and Pensions Service.

No specialist knowledge is needed to attend any workshop running up to 12 December 2023 

Help older homeowners to improve their homes

free webinar 30th November – open the flyer

Mental health awareness training

Ongoing training from MHFA England – find courses

Safeguarding

SWL ICB free Lunch and learn sessions for Adult safeguarding awareness week.

Monday, 20 Nov, 12:00-13:30: What’s My Role in Safeguarding Adults? Registration

Tuesday, 21 Nov, 12:00-13:00: Organisations Working Together: Community Safety: Registration

Wandsworth Safeguarding Children Partnership events

  1. Intra-familial Child Sexual Abuse (Friday 24 November 2023 at 9:30am – 5:00pm)
  1. Threshold Document Workshop (Thursday 30 November 2023 at 10:00am – 12:00pm)
  1. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and Breast Flattening / Ironing (Thursday 30 November 2023 at 10:00am – 11:30am)

7.    Forced Marriage Case Review and Lived Experience (Monday 4 December 2023 at 10:00am – 11:30am)

Enhancing the welfare advice offer

This online workshop is for organisations who offer welfare advice. The session is delivered by the SWL & St. George’s Mental Health NHS Trust. The purpose is to understand the best way to enhance the welfare advice offer for Wandsworth service users.

29th November 3pm-4pm

Click here to join the meeting

Meeting ID: 337 618 404 327
Passcode: JeRbsC

Download Teams | Join on the web

What is Kooth? The free mental health service for young people

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What is Kooth? 4 young people sat against a red background holding paper speech bubbles over their faces

What is Kooth?

Kooth is a free, safe, anonymous online mental health service for young people that is accessible 24/7, 365 days of the year and provides access to chat sessions with BACP-accredited counsellors and qualified emotional wellbeing practitioners.

All our chat sessions are text-based conversations that take place on the Kooth website, and last up to an hour. Chat is available from 12pm – 10pm Monday through Friday, and 6pm – 10pm Saturday and Sunday, providing a much needed ‘out of hours’ service.

Kooth is accessible from any device.

koothplc.com

Are you able to see all content on the site?

There are restrictions in place to ensure that when using Kooth, you only see what is age appropriate for you. This also helps us to ensure you find the content that is most useful to you.

Any comments are pre-moderated to ensure that only relevant comments are posted and visible.

Can you create content on Kooth?

You can submit content and post on the discussion boards to share your experiences and to support others within the Kooth community.

We also encourage you to give us feedback by sharing your views of how we deliver our service.

This will help us to keep improving Kooth.

Can you message other young people on Kooth?

The safety of our users on Kooth is really important to us.

Therefore, you cannot add friends or directly message other young people on the site in the same way you can on gaming platforms or social media sites.

This is because we are an anonymous service and we need to make sure everyone using the site is safe.

When can you talk to someone?

The Kooth team are available to chat 7 days a week, 365* days of the year. You can access the magazine, discussion boards and any other online content whenever you like, from wherever you are.

Our friendly online team are available to chat during the following times:

From 12 noon until 10pm weekdays.

From 6pm until 10pm weekends.

To make sure we can support as many of you as possible, we do have a chat queue.

How long you will have to wait in the chat queue depends on how busy the site is so please be patient with us.

You can send a message to the team at any time and it will be responded to during service working hours. Our counsellors are employed by us and are fully qualified with the BACP or equivalent.

Do you need to be referred by a GP?

You do not need to be referred to Kooth to access the service.

You are invited and welcome to join as long as you fall within the age of 10-25.

Behind Closed Doors Book Launch and Empowerment Event

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Behind Closed Doors Book Launch and Empowerment Event

Join us for an exciting in-person event at Balham Library where we will be revealing our new book ‘Behind Closed Doors’ that tells the stories of how a few individuals left abusive relationships and bettered their lives.

This event will give you the opportunity to get a first look at the book as well as a chance to get advice and information from local organisations.

Behind Closed Doors Book Launch and Empowerment Event Tickets, Tue, Oct 24, 2023 at 12:00 PM | Eventbrite

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