In 2023 Home-Start Bristol started delivering Mums in Mind groups in Children’s Centres across Bristol. It can be really daunting to come along to a group, especially for the first time but in this case study below you can read about how S overcame her anxiety about attending.
“this group gets me through the week”
S referred herself and her 10-month-old son to our first Mums in Mind peer support group which was held in a North Bristol Children’s Centre. Her reason for wanting to attend was to have, “support with my anxiety and depression that I’ve suffered with”. She had been informed about the group via her health Visitor who observed that her mental health was deteriorating, partly due to having a small baby, partly due to historical domestic violence that she had been victim of, as well as a chaotic home, and very little support around her.
Before the group sessions started one of Home-Start Bristol’s Family Support Coordinators rang S for an informal chat, to find out more about her reasons for starting the group, and to score her using the HSUK scoring of 0 to 5 (0 not coping, 5 coping well), for loneliness, isolation, and wellbeing. S scored herself 1’s for all three categories, and explained that she was extremely isolated, she would spend all day at home apart from the school run, had few friends, few family members to support her, and although her relationship with baby’s father was good, he didn’t really help around the home which made her incredibly resentful.
She exclusively breastfed her son and this stopped her from being able to leave him and get some time to herself because he wouldn’t take a bottle. This made her feel sad, lonely, and isolated, chained to her own home. As well as her baby son, she also had two older children, whose fathers had no contact with the family. The after effects of this trauma was experienced by both the children and S herself. S was struggling with her oldest son’s emotional needs and felt she was unable to meet them due to her own unresolved trauma. She felt that her emotional load was too much for her to deal with, and so her anxiety and depression deteriorated further.
Before having her youngest child, S had worked at a local primary school which she absolutely loved and felt that she was able to interact and relate well to the pupils there. However, this wasn’t something she could ever see herself doing again, although she aspired to work in social care support later in life. Her anxiety and depression were preventing her from making any progress because she didn’t have the self-confidence to make a start on plans for the future. This was something that we discussed frequently, with me advising her to take things little by little, day by day and she would hopefully then be able to start to plan for her future. S said she wanted to meet other new mums, particularly new mums who also felt they were struggling, as her isolation made her question if she was the only mum feeling this way.
At the first session group session it was obvious how nervous S was, and she stated this continuously throughout the session, but she also contributed the most! She spoke at length about her true feelings about being a parent, the negatives as well as some positives, and was happy to offer her advice/ support/ ideas to other mums, especially if the subject matter was to do with parenting issues she had already gone through. Over the eight sessions increased, and she stopped apologising for her nervousness and instead she would comment that, “this group gets me through the week”. This comment highlighted how lonely and isolated new mums/ parents can be, yet there are few facilities for peer support or opportunities for mums to be open, real and honest about their emotions, thoughts and feelings around being a mother, and not be judged. S would often state, “I didn’t think I could come this week, but I forced myself out of the house and I’m so glad I did”. She made friends with another young mum who as well as experiencing the same mental health issues, lived in the same area, and often felt too anxious to leave the house for group. By the end of the sessions they had swapped contact numbers and were arranging to meet outside of the group, and to use each other as motivation to get to group. The group really helped these Mums making new friends and to start to build a support network. The Family Support Coordinator was also able to signposted mum to the Strengthening Families Parenting course for support for her and her oldest son, to try to help them to develop better ways of communicating. S reported back that it did show her how much she actually knew already and she felt able to give some advice to the less experienced parents as well as gaining some for herself.
S was at first anxious to try the many sensory/messy play activities provided, but she did persevere, and we ended up with some amazing photographs of her son with his face in a tray of gloop! She kept apologising to the other mums for the mess he was making, but she was reassured that it could all be cleaned up, and Home-Start staff and volunteers talked about the benefits of that kind of play, and ways to introduce it at home in an easy, manageable way. S attended all but one of the sessions.
At the beginning and end of every session mums are asked to complete an evaluation of their emotions, S stated every week on arrival, that she felt tired and sick, and at the end of the group would state she felt relieved, more settled, happier, that it was good to meet everyone. Tiredness was still prevalent but of course it is a common theme amongst new parents!
