Our Support
whatever the issue, whatever the outcome... 55% of us are affected
And we are here to support you.
How we support you...
We provide specialist counselling to support you through your journey to becoming a parent (or not). Whatever your struggle, whatever the outcome, we don’t promise to fix anything for you, but we do promise to understand and support you through it.
When you work with us, your therapy is all about you and your needs, as it should be. We won’t promise that you’ll get pregnant, have a positive pregnancy, a beautiful birth, or always feel like a perfect parent, only to leave you feeling like a failure if that doesn’t happen. We will work with you and your needs to achieve the best possible outcome for you.
Safe spaces.
We offer safe, calm and confidential spaces where you can interact with the Muma Nurture Community made up of people just like you, as well as counselling, support and community groups where you get professional structured support to meet your needs.
No judgement. No expectations.
There is no judgement or expectation here, we will accept you exactly as you are and where you’re at.
You make decisions about how to move forward. It is your choice whether you have counselling with us, for how long and how much you get from that. We do not place a limit on the number of counselling sessions you can have, or what you can talk about, or push you down a prescriptive page of therapy with homework and required input and outcome. Why would we? Your experience is unique to you… and quite controversially we actually believe that choice and control are fundamental to your ‘recovery’ as there often isn’t any in experience that brought you to us.
Professional support.
All of our therapists are fully qualified and experienced and all of our volunteer team are trained in active listening plus the specific issues we work with to ensure the best possible support for you, from point of contact and throughout your time with us.
If you want information or to understand your options, please do ask, we love what we do and know a lot about it and that could be really helpful for you.
We totally understand that counselling, infertility, emotional well-being during and after pregnancy, and, baby loss. They are our areas of expertise not necessarily yours and we don’t want you to feel overwhelmed.
Therefore we think the best place to start is an initial consultation; you can tell us all about you and what brought you here, we can explain various options and then you can decide what you want to do next.
Your initial consultation can be taken individually or as a couple. Often couples have very different needs and therefore we would generally recommend you have individual counselling and we’re happy to discuss our reasoning with you.
THE PROCESS
Initial Consultation
The first step for everybody is a full 50 minute appointment with an experienced counsellor for you to speak about where you’re at, what you need, and decide how to work with us moving forward. Where possible, you will be given an appointment within a week. We support people throughout the UK, so this can be online or in person at our Eastbourne Community Hub.
Counselling
A neutral safe space for you to explore your thoughts and feelings completely confidentially and without judgement. We have a team of counselling specialists and you will be matched according to your needs and availability to get the most from your counselling.
Our counselling appointments are the same time and place (Eastbourne / Brighton / Haywards Heath / Bexhill / Online) each week with the same therapist and we ask you to commit to at least 6 weeks initially. There is no limit to the number of sessions you can have and no financial restrictions, we simply ask you donate what you can towards your therapy.
Counselling is not always comfortable, and it can take some time to settle into particularly if you are totally new to it, or have had bad experiences previously. Sometimes, it definitely feels worse before it feels better. It isn’t a quick fix at all, some things can be, and normally it takes time to unpick things you may have doing a certain way your whole life. The upside is once you have a better understanding you are often able to do things a better way for you forever from that point.
The best counsellor for you is not necessarily the person who immediately feels like your best friend (especially if you tend to pick those badly!), more a person than you feel you could trust to hold your innermost secrets eventually . . .someone with whom you feel totally accepted and your understanding grows, rapport can take time to develop and trust time to build, that’s ok. If you genuinely feel like you cannot work with your counsellor for whatever reason, please let us or them know, it happens and we have a whole team, we can re-allocate you
Support Group
Structured programme to address the issues we are most commonly struggling with – isolation, emotional wellbeing, stress coping mechanisms, grief, anger, and relationships. A different topic is addressed each week and often friendships are made amongst the group. A new group is run whenever we have enough demand and funding can be secured.
You can add yourself to our waiting list HERE.
Community Group
Holistic Therapies
We don’t currently provide any other therapies besides counselling, however we are fully supportive of them and the benefits to our community. We are working to bring you a list of therapists approved by us for your therapeutic needs. These will all guarantee you the same quality of care you would. Click here for therapists approved by us for your therapeutic needs. These therapists guarantee you the same quality of care we would.
Other Charitable Organisations
We provide specialist counselling for those struggling with infertility, perinatal mental health and baby loss, and recognise our community need a wide range of support, there are many other fantastic charities providing a range of support for these issues. We are working on bringing you a comprehensive list of those we recommend.
