Posted By: Amy Tubb
22nd January 2025
2 minute read
The Maternal Mental Health Alliance (MMHA) is pleased to announce new funding from the Pilgrim Trust to support a ‘Young Mums Maternal Mental Health Link Work Service’ in North East England, delivered in collaboration with Sunderland Counselling Service and Ways to Wellness. The £95,400 grant (over three years) will be shared among the three partners to ensure the effective delivery of this much-needed service.
The exciting new initiative aims to provide timely, flexible, and relationship-based maternal mental health care to young mothers aged 16–25, ensuring emotional and practical support complements existing mental health services in the region.
Pilgrim Trust is delighted to support this project, which will target the specific needs of young mothers. Research shows this group often faces additional barriers to accessing support such as negative stereotypes, unconscious bias and discrimination due to their age. The Young Mums Link Worker will be an integral part of addressing the wider emotional and practical factors that contribute to good maternal mental health.
Sonja Forbes, Grants Manager, Pilgrim Trust
A dedicated specialist Link Worker, supported by Sunderland Counselling Service and connected across the community, will provide emotional and practical guidance tailored to young mums, complementing existing mental health services.
The Link Worker will work with young mums to develop personalised support plans and develop a peer support initiative to encourage connection. Communication methods will be flexible and varied, including WhatsApp, texts, and safe face-to-face spaces to meet the unique needs of the women they’re caring for.
Ways to Wellness will work with the local Link Worker learning community, gathering insights and case studies to help refine the service offer, as well as alongside the Pilgrim Trust learning community. This approach ensures the project remains responsive to young mums’ needs and builds a strong evidence-based foundation for potentially scaling the model across integrated care boards (ICBs).
The MMHA will lead the policy and dissemination efforts, leveraging its extensive network of over 130 member organisations, experts by experience, academics, clinicians and supporters. Through collaboration with national and local partners, the project aims to inform policy changes and improve service provision for young mothers across the UK.
This funding will allow the MMHA, Sunderland Counselling Service and Ways to Wellness to build on previous collaborative projects focusing on young mums and enable the development of new, co-designed solutions to address their unmet needs. The project’s learning will be shared widely to improve services locally and influence national policy.
The MMHA is committed to ensuring that every mother and family impacted by perinatal mental illness receives the compassionate care they need and deserve. This support from the Pilgrim Trust, for which we are truly grateful, brings us a step closer to that vision.
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