Working with Vulnerable Mothers at Christmas

For vulnerable mothers, the experience or risk of child removal, insecure housing, and unmet needs such as addiction and mental health can make the festive season traumatic and complex. This resource is an invitation to practitioners across services to consider what it means to build effective support for mothers in this position.

Description

The festive period is a time of mounting pressure for everyone, particularly for parents, despite portrayals of belonging and family cohesion. For many mothers, however, the experience or risk of child removal, insecure housing, and unmet needs such as addiction and mental health can make the festive season traumatic and complex.

The familiar saying, “it takes a village to raise a child”, is a reminder that motherhood is not meant to be carried alone. Yet, for so many women who interact with public services, that ‘village’ can feel absent, instead being replaced by isolation and/or scrutiny.

This webinar is an invitation to practitioners across services to consider what it means to build effective support for mothers.

For so many vulnerable mothers, the festive period, as well as other celebrations where family bonds are felt most deeply, can magnify both love and loss.

Together, through lived experience and professional insights, we will reflect on how to show up with empathy, humanity and trauma-informed care – helping to create a net of support that holds mothers in their most difficult times.

These resources will help you:

• Using Christmas as a jumping off point, deepen your empathy with mothers who struggle during times where the notion of 'family' is important
• Understand how you can be a part of 'the village' that helps to support mothers
• Develop your understanding of the increased risks around the festive period and other significant celebrations
• Understand the importance of supporting mothers who are separated from their children to engage in family time at Christmas and other key celebrations
• Understand the importance of 'home' for mothers, and what this means when factors are present such as housing insecurity, child removal, and care arrangements that impact family time at Christmas

Further reading