Posted By: Richa Mitra
16th September 2026
4 minute read
Over the past year, we’re thrilled to have seen the Maternal Mental Health Councils Programme move from design and development into delivery, creating a pioneering model that brings together women and birthing people with lived experience, grassroots organisations, statutory services and regional decision-makers to drive local systems change.
The programme has been led by inspiring groups of women and birthing people with lived experience, who have focused Council directions through workstreams that are creating sustainable pathways for influencing local systems.
Lived experience leadership has been the golden thread throughout this programme and a year in, it remains a defining achievement. Both Councils that are currently live, the North East Council for Complex Motherhood and NOOR Council in Birmingham have embedded lived experience leadership.
The Councils are run by women and birthing people with direct experience of facing the most inequities during their perinatal mental health journey, with the specific lens of the Council. This is through the Chair role, and this has ensured that those most affected by gaps in support are shaping solutions, priorities and recommendations that come out of the Councils.
The first Council in Newcastle and Gateshead was launched October 2025 and has brought together women experiencing complex motherhood, including those affected by poverty, domestic abuse, addiction and involvement with social services. Through local partnership with Her Circle, the Council has established a local platform for exploring barriers, amplifying lived experience voices and identifying opportunities for service and systems improvement, through multiagency collaboration.
In April, we started working with Approachable Parenting as our local partner for Council 2, as we expanded the programme into new communities and started tackling further inequities. The second Council in Birmingham, is focused on women and birthing people marginalised by race, faith and culture. The Council has been affectionately named NOOR Council by lived experience voices involved and officially launched within the local system in July.
It has been great to have two out of our total three Councils up and running, and to see the programme reaching communities who are disproportionately affected by poor maternal mental health outcomes and less likely to get access to appropriate and timely support.
A key aspect of the programme is to turn local insights from this model of community action, into national influence. The Councils are not simply discussion spaces. They are designed to generate evidence, learning and recommendations that can be shared nationally, which can in turn being learnings back to the local systems.
We are developing governance structures, through working groups and operational groups that will support the refinement of cross-Councils themes that can be taken to a National Advisory Group.
Following the first Councils Working Group meetings taking place this July, it has been great to already see potential routes for local experiences and solutions to influence wider policy and practice, at a national level.
In the first year of the Programme, it has been clear that these Councils play a key role in strengthening collaboration across sectors, within a local system. A significant area of progress has been in convening partners who do not always have opportunities to work together. Through the Councils, we have been able to see that this programme has brought together voluntary sector organisations, wider sectors such as justice and social care, health services, local authorities, community leaders, researchers and lived experience representatives around a shared goal: reducing inequalities for a certain community facing the most inequities, during the perinatal period.
As well as setting up Councils 1 and 2, the last year has seen significant work taking place within the evaluation and learning workstream for the programme. Last summer we confirmed our Evaluation Partner, Wonder Insight, who have been working with us on developing the foundations for capturing impact, across the Councils, over the next few years. You can find our co-created Story of Change here. Our Evaluation Partner works closely with our Councils to co-create Impact Frameworks that are Council-specific, as well as a robust national framework to support evidencing impact on a national scale, for the next few years.
As we go into Autumn 2026, we are now ready for the next stage in this programme and are currently preparing for the third Council, which will be in Scotland and focused on younger mothers and birthing people (up to the age of 25). Watch this space for exciting news over the next few weeks on who the local partner is, and where this Council will be based.
It has been an extremely exciting year for the Maternal Mental Health Councils Programme, and the Councils have been demonstrating what becomes possible when lived experience, community expertise and system leaders work together. While there is still much to do, the past year has laid strong foundations for a growing movement that seeks to make perinatal mental health support more equitable and shaped by the voices of those facing the most inequity.
To read all of our Councils Programme updates, head here.
