When planning how you will create opportunities for pregnant women to meet a peer supporter, it’s important to decide whether your volunteer initiative is about early prevention or responding to a crisis situation.
If your focus is early prevention, you will need to plan how volunteers will meet pregnant women who would benefit from early support as early as possible in the pregnancy.
Offering universal access to support can also help avoid pregnant women declining support for fear of being judged as ‘needy’. It will also help to avoid stigma and promotes inclusion.
Engaging with expectant mums
Plan a variety of ways that pregnant women and volunteers will meet
Pregnant women, expectant fathers and partners will first meet a volunteer in a variety of ways:
- Meeting a volunteer informally at an antenatal clinic
- Responding to a referral from a professional or front-line community worker by meeting with the mum/partner either virtually or face-to-face
- Meeting a volunteer at a stand at a community event
- Phone, email or text, after finding out about the programme from social media, a leaflet, seeing a poster or reading an article in a newspaper.
A variety of easy, informal routes to support can work well. For example, topic-based friendly ‘drop-in’ face-to-face or online group activities for pregnant women; virtual peer-to-peer information sessions, or fun and friendly exercise sessions (face-to-face or online) that are open to all. An offer of more personal, one-to-one peer support can be made once initial relationships have been established.
Marginalised women can be wary of professionals and may be resistant to a referral. Establishing initial contact and continuity of support with transient pregnant women (such as travellers and those living in homeless hostels) can be challenging. Particularly flexible and proactive engagement processes work best.
Include expectant fathers and partners
Make a specific peer support offer available to expectant fathers and same sex partners.
Programme leaflets and materials need to make inclusiveness explicit.
Facilitate a stakeholder event
Bringing professionals and partners together at an early stage helps get buy-in from the beginning.
The following video provides an example of how this works in practice:
Identify local professionals to champion your programme and involve them in your set-up by:
- Inviting them to work with you on the volunteer training programme content and delivery
- Asking for their feedback on information leaflets, referral forms and guidelines for professionals (downloadable below)
- Clearly articulating the ground rules and boundaries in your volunteer role descriptions and policies and procedures (Volunteer role descriptions downloadable below as well as the Volunteer Handbook, see pages 25-54 for policies and procedures)
- Emphasising how volunteer roles complement and don’t replace professional services
- Keeping professionals updated about developments at their meetings or through regular newsletters.
The 'example leaflet for pregnant women' can be adapted to suit your own programme on request. For more details please email us at [email protected].
Example leaflet for pregnant women
Added 19/02/2020Please sign in to download this file.
Referral form and guidelines for professionals
Added 19/02/2020Please sign in to download this file.
Volunteer role descriptions
Added 19/02/2020Please sign in to download this file.
Volunteer Handbook
Added 19/02/2020Please sign in to download this file.
Make it as straight forward as you can for professionals to make referrals.
When setting up referral pathways:
- Involve professionals in scoping out referral pathways. Clarify how and when to refer, who to refer to, and the benefits for parents and babies
- Create informative publicity materials, referral forms and guidance for professionals and make forms easy for busy professionals to complete
- Set up efficient processes for managing referrals. Any delay can put families and professionals off.
Example leaflet for pregnant women
Added 24/02/2020Please sign in to download this file.
Referral forms and guidelines for professionals
Added 24/02/2020Please sign in to download this file.
Examples of leaflets, posters and referral forms can be downloaded below:
Example leaflet for pregnant women
Added 24/02/2020Please sign in to download this file.
Referral form and guidelines for professionals
Added 24/02/2020Please sign in to download this file.
Manual Guide: Enabling expectant parents to access support
Added 24/02/2020Please sign in to download this file.
Additional help - leaflets can be adapted to suit your own content on request. Please email [email protected] for more details.