Starting a group for women with post natal mental illness

[mmcupcake]

Hi,
I am working on starting a group in Northumberland to help women with post natal mental health illnesses. So far i have it set as a 12 week course looking at everything from diet to anger management. I suffered from post natal depression and other illnesses after having my son and want to help other women who had the same problems.
Now to what i want from mumsnetters. Is there anything that you think would be important to include, anything that worked for you?
Also do you think that women would join a group to help (i have contacted Sure Start about them offering a creche facility during the time the group is going on) with this or am i better off maybe trying to focus on a 1-1 type session?
Any thoughts and opinions would be most greatfully recieved.

what professional qualifications do you have? Because with all the respect in the world for your own painful experiences it is not necessarily enough.

It's usually wise to look at what is already provided in the area to make sure you dont overlap, and to look at what is already successful elsewhere.

For example have a look at Acacia running in the birmingham area

Thank you for your responses. The hope is that once the course has been written and approved that either a qualified counciler or therapist would run the course in conjunction with Sure Start where a creche facility would be offered. Thanks for the links i will investigate them.

that's horse behind the cart - you're not qualified to write the course - start by finding an expert then work together on the course!!!

There is another MN on these threads (Natsyloo) I'm sure she won't mind my mentioning her. She is not any sort of specialist but she has started a PND support group as she has suffered from it and is now more or less recovered and is back at work. She has a very high powered job (but nothing to do with health). There are 4 or 5 mums in the group. I got the impression that it was a small group of women who were coming together to talk to others who understood the problem and were supporting each other, and apparently it is going well. Mmcupcake - you could always put a call out for Natsyloo and she will tell you about her group. I think you have to be a bit careful cupcake because groups are very powerful things and you need to be able to handle things that come up unexpectedly - also worry a bit about the one-to-one idea. I think it all depends on how you set up the group, and whether you see yourself as a mum who has suffered PND and just wants to help others, it could be very informal but I think when you talk of writing a 12 week course, it starts to look like something much more formal, and I think Madmouse is right, that it needs someone qualified or experienced at this task and someone who knows about groupwork.

I think you best bet is to talk to Natsyloo (she's ever so nice and gives such good advice. She did a newspaper article with photos of herself and her child, telling her story really) as a way of advertising the group, but I got the sense it was a very informal gathering - not sure what happened about the children though - maybe some mums got their LOs looked after for an hour or so - or maybe she recruited an experienced mother/grandmother to care for the LOs, but this would only work if there were 4 or 5 children I would have thought.

I can well understand you wanting to help others, it's just how you go about it really. And to be honest I think it is much more helpful for mums with PND to talk to someone like yourself rather than some counsellor or therapist who has not had the experience.

Hello!
Ah, firstly, bless you NN for saying such kind things about me - that's made my evening :)

I'm no qualified specialist in PND - my experience is purely first hand as a mum. I think what you're trying to do is really good, the intention is fab, but I will just pass on some feedback from a focus group I set up on how to get the best from a group.

We made a decision that the group would be a self help community resource for mums to talk informally among ourselves about life experience but NOT to advise on anything medical. We have sought support from our Children's Centre and my HV also attends to offer signposting for mums who might benefit form extra help. We are very careful not to put ourselves in a position of authority given the vulnerable nature of mums and our lack of qualifications.

We did consider having a mental health professional present and we may still have one as a visiting speaker but we agreed the group wasn't intended as medical intervention but as a support resource for isolated mums who simply could go somewhere on a regular basis to meet like-minded mums.

As for childcare - we encourage mums (and dads) to bring babies/toddlers with them as we think the interaction between parents and children is a fundamental part of PND - and the early years co-ordinator who has helped me to devise a potential programme of guest speakers, is qualified to provide activities for the little ones.

There are lots of groups out there - with lots of different formats - each with their own merits. Just be careful you're not making yourself (and others) vulnerable by trying to be advisory rather than simply being yourself (a mum with valuable first hand experience of the horrors of PND).

Hope that helps. Take care and good luck.

ps. my job really isn't that high powered - I've clearly bigged myself up!!