Trauma informed community based support - the Mas Project
The Mas project is led by the Women’s Resource and Development Agency and our core model is delivered in the holistic environment of the women’s centres, linked to wrap-around support, advice and education that empowers women to heal and prosper. Leading the Mas project is a great privilege and also a passion. We have created a movement for Mums that provides the environment for women to support each other’s healing and a sisterhood that sends out our campaign message that Mas matter!
Healing, understanding and empowerment
This movement for mums is embedded in our trauma informed approach to community peer support. A trauma-informed approach is a way of providing support, services, or care that recognises and responds to the impact of trauma on individuals. It emphasises physical, psychological, and emotional safety, and helps individuals rebuild a sense of control and empowerment through 6 key principles.
Cultural, Historical and Gender Responsiveness
There has been a societal expectation on mothers to be okay because they are mothers reinforced by a historic lack of services for women who are unwell in the perinatal period. The visibility of Mas has transformed that, supporting maternal and infant mental health. Creating healing spaces has a transformational and transgenerational impact. The centres are located in disadvantaged communities, disproportionately impacted by a legacy of conflict and poverty that impacts on mental health.
Peer Support
Our peer support model is led by Mind and McPinn Perinatal peer support principles ensuring that support is safe and nurturing, accessible and inclusive, complements rather than replicates the work of clinical services, provides meaningful involvement for women with lived experience, and benefits all including peer support workers.
Safety and Self-Help
Our Mas project values capture the essence of who we are as a project: Acceptance, Belonging, Hope, Empowerment. We provide a non-judgemental environment and a safe space to be, heal and recover, grow and prosper, demonstrating the essence of trauma informed practice.
Empowerment, Voice and Choice
Women with lived experience lead and influence our work strategically and the project amplifies women’s voices, reducing stigma in maternal mental health by speaking at conferences, being active in the mother and baby unit campaign, designing a flyer for healthcare professionals about the core change needed in the health service, creating an art project highlighting the power of peer support, creating a Mas book of women’s experiences of the project and their own perinatal journey.
Trustworthiness and Transparency
Embedded in our perinatal peer support model is an understanding of how experiences and trauma can impact and we integrate this into the way that we work, with an openness to learning from women, who are experts by experience. We maintain a person led, reflective and flexible approach in the support that we provide. The Mas book of experiences demonstrates how connection, support and being heard combined with a developmental programme lifts women and restores hope, recovery and self- belief. The book provides a powerful insight into the lived resilience of women and includes experiences of domestic abuse, birth trauma, baby loss, isolation that have led to a maternal mental health problem. Our practice understands what women have come through and acknowledges their journey. Having a baby is a unique time in a woman’s life, a change in identity and gaining a new sense of self as a mum but still being the same person – Mas supports the transition, still being you but a mummy too.
Collaboration and Mutuality
Our developmental Mas model provides women with the opportunity to train as group leaders, do the Mas OCN and get involved with other WRDA activities and events. We are so proud that three paid staff on the project are past participants and are now supporting other mums. We respond to the needs of community and have now developed a young mums project specifically for women 16-25 that is delivered in two centres. We have developed a second version of our model to support affiliate groups in rural areas, where women often experience increased isolation due to a lack of services.
Why trauma informed practices matter in peacebuilding and community work
Our ultimate goal is the sustainability of trauma informed community based support. For women in the future to continue towards wellness and self-development, this work must receive statutory funding. We encourage government departments to demonstrate a perinatal, preventative lense to their decisions that will have potential to create healing and empowerment for communities of mums and babies in Northern Ireland.
Learn more about the Mas Project here: https://www.wrda.net/projects/maternal-advocacy-and-support-project
