What is this career?

[cantreachmytoes]

I know what I want to do, I just don't know what it is called and therefore how to go about it!
I would like to work with pregnant women who have issues with birth (in particular) because of previous sexual assault/rape and postpartum women who have issues after the birth because of these events in their lives or other aspects of their life pre-birth, or traumatic births.

I was looking at doing a psychology degree and then psychotherapy masters, but am wondering if that's wise (6 years).

I then wondered if it would be better to train as a midwife (something that also interests me, but I'm unlikely to be able to practice as my life currently stands - complicated to explain) so I get good experience with women and birth experiences before moving sideways. It would also mean I could be employed after the degree (if life circumstances change) unlike after a degree in psychology.

Any ideas?! Does the job I ultimately want exist? I've looked and looked but haven't found anything online.

Would that come under psychiatric nursing? I don't know, it's just a thought. It might also be a mentor of some kind.

Maybe contact somewhere like a rape crisis centre and see if they have heard of this career, they might not. Also women's refuges.

it sounds like a fantastic idea, if it doesn't exist it should. I would suggest woman who have been through fgm would also benefit from this.

Do you intend to just concentrate in the woman or would you involve the women's partner? Would this be one to one or groups, a bit like a prenatal class?

Another thought - bloody hell you have got me thinking - what about Irish women who have come to the UK for abortion, I know that for some women the workers in the UK are the first to hear that the woman seeking an abortion has been raped. They do not go to the police in Ireland because of the abortion ban (no idea if that is a justified reaction).

The abortion support network are always looking for volunteers. There are some counseling courses you can do in FE colleges.

www.abortionsupport.org.uk/

Counseling providers - you might be better with counseling than psychology - again I don't know

www.bacp.co.uk/accreditation/Accredited%20Course%20Search/index.php

Thank you!

Ultimately yes, I would like to work with women who have issues with pregnancy/birth for whatever reason or who have had stillborn births, miscarriages, abortions etc. I didn't write it all down, but everything related.

As for one to one or groups, I'd like to do both, obviously depending on the circumstances.

Work with partners would be invaluable too, but as a starting point, I'd like to work with women - I can't do everything at once, sadly!

A concern I have with doing counselling - and I don't intend this to be offensive to counsellors, as they do great work - is that I'm not sure how seriously they're taken by the medical profession. I think it's important for a role like this to be taken seriously as it would be involved with people at an extremely vulnerable point in their lives.

Will try getting in touch with your suggestions.

Thanks again!

Ironically, given the specificity of your goal, I think you need to be more specific about how you envisage your role working out in practice. Would you be supporting them in the birth and post birth process, advising on medical issues surrounding birth and post-birth or ....?

It sounds like a specialist counselling role to me, so getting a counselling degree and accrediited by the BAC would be the start. You'd also maybe need to think about how your services would be accessed. Privately or through GP (not sure how you'd get NHS contracts....). Bear in mind what you're offering is very specialised and you'd probably be covering quite a large geographical area if you get well known and GPs recognise your speciality.

It sounds fantastic, but I think you really need to research whether this role exists and who employs them. Otherwise doing it privately would be an option, but then you'd need to consider how you get bookings/contracts and whether it something individuals/services would pay for, especially with the financial situation and all the cuts at the moment.

I would imagine crisis centres might be a good place to start enquiring. I hope it does exist

Thank you!

Good points, especially about the geographical area and type of employment given the cuts. Guess I should learn to drive too!

Sashh - funnily enough out of all this, one area I have the most exposure too has been FGM and I didn't even include that in my thoughts. VERY pertinent though.