Community Group of the Year nomination – Mothers Mind Staffordshire

Community Group of the Year nomination – Mothers Mind Staffordshire

A Stoke-on-Trent charity that provides maternal mental health peer-led help has supported more than 330 mothers since it was founded in 2021.

Mothers Mind Staffordshire was started by Sally Wilson, aged 44. Sally was herself recovering from postnatal depression and vowed to set up an organisation to provide the help, support and love that was so desperately needed.

Her aim was to create a charity that would open conversations, break down stigmas and discrimination, empower mums and educate people to support and encourage those affected by maternal mental health. As Sally says “we wrap mums with love”.

With a background in mental health, care and family support, Sally is a perinatal specialist leading a team of seven volunteers who between them possess a wide range of maternal mental health illness experience and skills.

The team’s effectiveness comes not only from its passion but also their lived experience of what the mums they encounter are going through.

Mothers Mind Staffordshire has been nominated in the Community Group of the Year category of the Your Heroes Awards by some of the mums it has worked with.

One mum said: “Mothers Mind were the first service I was brave enough to reach out to in the darkest days. All of the staff are warm, compassionate, nurturing mums with lived experience.”

Another said: “There are no real words to describe how supportive, empathetic and empowering the ladies are.”

Sally Wilson said: “We provide a range of support and services and collaborate with a variety of people and organisations. We see this as an eco-system focused on bringing goodness.

“We want to get the message out that it is normal and okay to feel this way and everything we do is built upon building friendships, breaking the stigma attached to maternal mental health and eventually to mums having an ownership of their recovery.

“We provide a space where invested time and love strengthens and builds the bond and attachment between mother and infant. We want to build the charity and continue making a difference.

“Mothers Mind Staffordshire is the only peer-led perinatal mental health charity in the city – this isn’t just a passion, it’s a mission and something that I love doing”.