Young Parents Connect

Connecting young mothers and services promotes good mental health for the whole family.

Young Parents Connect is a three-year peer support project for young mothers (up to 25 years) that uses a creative, whole-family approach to mental health prevention within a community setting.

Delivered borough-wide in Royal Borough of Greenwich and city-wide across Nottingham City in partnership with local authority services and local third sector organisations MumsAid, Nottingham City Council and The Motherhood Group. This project is funded by the Mental Health Foundation Covid Response Programme.

As a result of feedback from young mothers themselves and our partners, we have changed the name of this project from its previous version, Young Mums Connect.

It was hard to recognise that I am a good mum and I am doing a great job – they reassure me every week that I’m doing a good job. I had lots of doubts about this when I first started.

Mum from Young Parents Connect Group 

…they have helped with my anxiety and to gain my confidence

Mum from Young Parents Connect Group 

Looking back now, I didn't know how bad it was, but if I actually think about what kind of headspace I was in. Yeah, it was really bad, but [Young Parents Connect] definitely helped me get out the house and…[we are in the] same space, experiencing the same things and people to help you…

Mum from Young Parents Connect Group

The project uses a two-strand approach

1. Young Parents Connect weekly groups

A peer support intervention that includes weekly groups and a peer supporter pathway for young mums:

• A weekly peer support intervention delivered in a community setting that uses a three-block structure focusing on “All about Me”; “Baby and Me” and “My support, my network and my community”. Weekly sessions for local young parents and their children using activities and discussion to address key risk factors common to young parents including single mothers, Black, Asian and minority ethnic mothers and mothers at risk of long-term mental health conditions. 
• The sessions are designed to be flexible and adaptable to the needs of the group, but the blocks have been designed to provide a framework for discussions designed to support the mental health and wellbeing of young parents.  
• Workforce training designed to support those who will be delivering the groups to understand the unique strengths of young parents as well as some of the barriers they face to accessing services. The training also supports the workforce to understand the importance of peer support and how to effectively implement the group. 

2. Peer support pathway

We recognise that people want to get involved in different ways at different times so we have developed a pathway to support young parents on their journey  

• Three-stage pathway:  
  • Peer volunteering – just leading on an activity within the group e.g. massage or nail painting as part of self-care
  • Peer facilitation volunteers – working with paid facilitators to deliver sessions within the group, potentially leading on the mental health discussions
  • Paid peer facilitation – working as a paid facilitator co-leading a group for young parents
• We provide training for young parents who want to become peer-supporters within the Young Mums Groups, at whatever stage they feel comfortable with
• Young parents need to be part of the group (or have attended a group previously). 

2. National workforce training

We have delivered training to upskill the workforce across health and social care settings to understand the unique strengths of young parents as well as some of the barriers they face to accessing services. The training also supports the workforce to understand the role of peer support and the importance of specialist groups for young parents.

By the end of the programme, we will have a toolkit designed to support organisations who want to deliver Young Parents Connect so that we can embed the delivery into existing service structures. 

Our partners

Previous partners

• MumsAid – specialist mental health charity embedded in the Royal Borough of Greenwich offering support for families.
• The Motherhood Group – specialist CIC that accounts for the experience of black mothers in the UK

Ongoing partner

• Nottingham City Council – specifically delivering alongside the Early Help Team and delivering within the family Early Help Pathways