To "use up" a home start volunteer for myself...

[Bathsheba]

3 months ago I was really ill - I had bi-lateral (used to be called double) pneumonia, and swine flu, all whilst being 7 months pregnant. I was very ill but they wouldn't admit me to hopsital or give me anything other than standard gp care etc...

While I was ill I contacted my midwife and HV because I was in a position where my DH needed to go back to work (and go abroad for a number of days) but I couldn't look after my children - I was too ill. They looked into various options for me including Social Services Childminding but in the end my Dh was able to take 2 weeks dependants leave. However, at this point my Hv referred me to Home Start so that I would have some support if anything like that ever happened again.

I have since had my baby and I'm almost fully recovered from my c-section but my Dh is off back to work on Monday. I have 3 dds - 1 is ages 6 and at school full time, DD2 is 3 and goes to playgroup for 3 sessions a week and DD3 is 3 weeks old and is yummy.

The Home Start Co-ordinator phoned and said they now have a volunteer for me who can come and see me for a few hours a week and either give me a hand round the house, or look after the baby etc while I go and have a shower for example.

I feel really torn...I guess I'm a fairly typical middle class SAHM - my DH comes home every night (often at 6:30 - 7 but he is here every day apart from the odd business trip abroad) and my Mum is local. I also have a cleaner for a few hours once a week, which means the place isn't permanantly like a show home but it means that the bathrooms etc are regularly cleaned. I drive and have access to a car every day so we get out and about and I can take the girls to their activities. They have extra things like tennis lessons and ballet which, yes its sometimes a bit of a hassle to take them to, but at the end of the day these are optional things we have chosen for them to do and really I can't complain about them...

However the idea of someone coming round so I can have a LONG shower during the day, and maybe get a chance to tidy the bigger girls's room sounds fantastic - when my Mum is round I don't really do those types of things because she is here with me and we do things together....although I'm sure she'd watch the girls if I ask.

I had PND after DD1 was born, and PTSD after DD2 was born, so I can see why my HV is keen to surround me with support, but I feel a fraud taking a much needed volunteer away from possibly a single Mum or someone with little local family support, or a Mum without the opportunities I have.

The Home Start Co-ordinator is coming round to see me on Monday afternoon to discuss things and I'm really wondering if I should embrace the opportunity and say thank you, or if I should really explain that I feel a bit of a fraud and I understand her volunteers are like gold dust and someone more deserving really should have this volunteers time rather than me...

And by the way, its not that easy to take help even when you have supportive friends and family. I felt incredibly guilty asking them to help, they all had lives to leave and hadn't chosen to help someone in my position. So I mostly struggled on by myslef apart from one friend who virtually insisted on helping. If the homestart had been an option it would have been guilt free and an incredible blessing. Needing help isn't "we'll all go under without it" sometimes it's "we'll have an acceptable quality of life with it" Otherwise why would the NHS treat non life threatening condiditons?

I'm involved in running a Home-Start scheme, and you should be aware the co-ordinators are trained and well-qualified. They are not simply a diary secretary for the volunteers, they are trained to assess need and allocate appropriate resources. They manage large budgets, staff, large number of volunteers, have a vital role in safeguarding and liaising with social services and other voluntary and public bodies.

Yes, the economic situation has created pressures on funding (money can come from charitable trusts, the Lottery, and primary care trusts/social services), and also increased demand for our services - both the number of requests for help and the complexity of people's problems have increased.

But one major factor in the 'value-for-money' equation (that some posters have been so concerned about!) is the preventative value. If a few weeks' support can stop a mother dipping into PND, then that not only improves her and her family's quality of life, but also reduces demand on GP, HV and wider public services. It is never an exact science to measure things such as 'need' and 'benefit' but in my experience, Home-Start do a pretty good job in making good use of what they have.

So, OP, please have your discussion with the co-ordinator. She will let you know whether HS can help. She'll also closely monitor what the volunteer is doing, and the progress you're making. And she will decide when it is appropriate to end involvement.

The op doesn't have PND, she has had in it the past.
She wants a volunteer so she can have a long shower and a tidy up.
It's hard to turn down help when it's there, it's also easy to convince yourself you need help, and deserve help when you don't.

If the OP gets PND, then she should get help, but right now, she doesn't need it, and nor should she get assessed when she knows.
It's just another way of her convincing herself she shouldn't need to cope.

Get on with it, like the rest of us with far less do. (and flame me for this one, but I know far too many people who don't feel as smily as usual, declare they have PND and then milk it for all it's worth, giving those of us who did have it, a bad name.)

Somewhere along the line, we're told we don't have to cope, and this thread is a great example of it.

The reality is, we do have to cope, and we can't get help in case of a problem. Rightly or wrongly, it's the reality and you can't take a volunteer just in case.

muggglewump,
Maybe the people who declare that they have postnatal depression and are smiley have a mixed mood disorder. Depression can take on many forms. Not everyone with postnatal depression is a teary mess. Many people try to be "brave" and cope.

Given the stigma that mental illness has in this country I doult that anyone would make it up that they had a mental illness.

I was very smiley and never cried when I was severely depressed seven years ago. I did try to starve myself to death and got refered to a CPN. Putting on a positive front is very common.

I was told that if I had more children that there would be a 70% chance of a recurrance depression. It is why health professionals have watched my mood like a hawk.

With regard to friends and family support - my entire childrearing life has been spent a minimum of 100 and mostly 200 miles away from all family support. As I started my family young all said family members were also in full time work. I have friends and of course we helped each other out but when I had dd3 a lot of my first baby friends were at a different place in their lives and I found I knew practically nobody with a young baby anymore. So because I had good health and enough get up and go to do it I trekked to the bumps and baby group on the other side of the city. I was lucky in being able to do that, it would have been very easy to have become isolated at that point. Had I had another child at home getting out to something like that would have been impossible. It's very easy to say that someone should be fine because they have x or y but life post partum is the most vulnerable time most of us will ever have. you throw an illness, a relationship trouble, money worries in to the pot and you have a catastrophe brewing.

What sort of bitter and meanspirited person resents help being offered to a woman like the op? This thread should be about celebrating her HV's proactive behaviour and about encouraging the op to place a value on herself. She is her children's most precious posssession - she should be treasuring herself.

Northernlurker "What sort of bitter and meanspirited person resents help being offered to a woman like the op?"

It really is yuck isn't it?

The fact that not everybody has access to the help is not a reason for those that do to not take it up if offered.

Actually I've always found it rather difficult to accept help when offered and the first post suggests the same may be true of the OP.

Providing she's honest with the co-ordinator about her past, her illness and how she feels now then no-one needs to get on their high horse. The co-ordinator will decide whether she fits the criteria. My experience of accepting charitable help (portage and nas befriending ime) is that there is a pretty strict set of criteria to meet before you are assigned a volunteer and then you have to agree to certain terms with regular reviews. I doubt the OP will be given a volunteer if she does not fit the scheme.

Double pneumonia followed by a section with three children? I've never had pnd but I was wiped out after my third (anaemic). Had I been recovering from double pneumonia as well I'm sure short term help would have been very welcome.

Based on the information provided by the OP, I think she might benefit from (and could afford) a Mother's Help to come in every day.

Or perhaps she could arrange a temporarty part time nanny to help her through this phase.

Home-Start isn't meant to rescue people from the pit of despair. It is meant to prevent them falling in to difficulties.

So the co-ordinator - who is a paid, trained, highly qualified member of staff - will assess anyone who is referred (or self-refers) and allocate help if it is appropriate.

Home-Start is not an 'on-demand' free babysitting service. It has to account to the resources it uses (money and volunteer time), and that is a responsibility taken very seriously by trustees and lead co-ordinators.

Anyone can approach HS for help. It's goal is preventative: stopping a mother falling into PND can have massive benefits, both for the mother and her family, and also in terms of the demand on local, tax-payer funded, services - GPs, HVs, Social Services.

OP you are still recovering from a serious illness , major surgery and 3 small children. If you don't qualify as being deserving of help then I don't know who is.

I doult that the OP is super rich if she was offered social services childminding. I think people are being a bit ridicolous assuming the the OP must be super rich just because she has a cleaner.

You can get a cleaner for about £40 a week. It is a luxury, but hardly puts her in the category of super rich. I am sure that many mumsnetter might spend that sort of money in a week on fags, drink, nursery fees for children of SAHMs, gym feesm restaurant meals, cable TV, clothed etc ...

Prehaps the OP can afford a cleaner because she works hard. This thread has a lot of jelousy.

mugglewump a complete subject change but how is the bird problem you were concerned about?

"Yes, this illustrates my point beuatifully.
What the hell happened to friendship or the concept of a family being there to help you out??"

moondog not everybody has friends and family to help them out. When I had DS I was in a new area where I new hardly anybody. Of course I had friends, but they all lived miles away.

My Mum (who doesn't believe in PND ) is 40 mins away, and did try to help, but there was only so much she could do.

Homestart would have been a lifesaver to me in the early days, it really would.

FFS I think a lot of you are being very irresponsible and mean in your responses to the OP. Her health visitor referred her...maybe the health visitor sees a need and people in the early stages of PND may not think they need the help and then it hits them.

Talk to the home start people...be honest and see what they say. And quite honestly just ignore these women with such fucking huge chips on their shoulders. Sorry but I really think some of you are being total cows.

knew, not new. whoops.

Have read this thread and like mamazon, I work as a co-ordiantor for HS (was also a volunteer for 7 years).

Totally agree with everything she has said, especially about the 'service' the volunteers are supposed to provide and the funding (no cleaning, not baby sitters).

The co-ordinator will assess and make the decision as to whether the OP will benefit from having a volunteer. Sometimes, we signpost onto other services, sometimes the co-ordinator themselves goes in to support a family if no relevant volunteer is available and the family is in desperate need and sometimes we support them over the phone, ie calling once a week to see how things are going.

I feel for the op, as she is questioning whether she needs, not demanding, HS's support.

Also, I urge those who have time on their hands to get out there and volunteer.

And to whoever asked whether SN families can access this type of support, contact your local HS scheme as I am the co-ordinator for families with children with SN in my borough and other schemes may have the same set up.

what LeQueen said.

"The bitter envy thinly disguised as righteousness on here is sickening."

Here here. OP I so hope you are still going to go ahead and accept some help. If you are still reading, I hope you take heart from all the helpful and positive responses on here. My heart goes out to you.

Thesecondcoming, as I mentioned earlier in the thread, I was a co-ordinator (until the local authority cut our funding and two of us lost our jobs) and if you were one of my volunteers and you said to me what you've said on this thread, I'd be talking to you in your support and supervision session about taking a less judgmental attitude.

It's great that you are a volunteer, but the fact that you have to arrange babysitters to do so is your business. I hope that you don't put pressure on the family you support by telling them the sacrifices you've made to visit them.