MumsAid was founded in 2012 because we believe passionately that pregnancy and new motherhood can be an exciting, but also challenging, time, and that the right support can make a difference, not just to mothers but to the healthy emotional development of their babies, and the broader well-being of their families and communities.
Since its inception, MumsAid has delivered a growing programme of support during the perinatal period (pregnancy, birth and the early infant years), which has included counselling and psychotherapy, befriending support by trained peer volunteers, training for frontline staff in postnatal depression awareness, clinical supervision, and an active social media presence aimed at providing support to mothers and raising awareness.
Our services have been provided in a number of children’s and community centres in the Royal Borough of Greenwich, and from September 2016 also in Lambeth.
Autumn 2015 saw the launch of a new service, YoungMumsAid, funded by Children in Need to give specialist support to teenage mothers and their babies.
Our CEO and founder, Dr Miriam Donaghy, is a Perinatal Psychotherapist who has been providing services for women experiencing perinatal mental health (PMH) issues since the end of the 1990’s, previously managing parenting projects for both Greenwich Mind and Tavistock Relationships.
MumsAid’s staff team includes Jessica Svejdar, Anila Destani, Ann Marshall, Kelly Jordan, Sam Quinn, Marisol Grijalva and Rachael Cohesy, along with Clinical Supervisor Harsha Rai, and a team of committed and experienced, volunteer counsellors and psychotherapists and a growing team of associate counsellors providing the private counselling service.
We are also supported in delivering our work by a skilled and committed board of trustees.
As an organisational member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP), MumsAid is bound by its ethical framework.