Trust invites people to celebrate 10 years of Cornish perinatal care
Cornwall's Specialist Perinatal Service is holding an event to celebrate its birthday. The service has been operating for 10 years.
The event will be in Newquay on Saturday 16 September. It will be open to past and present service users and their families. They can pre-register for this event.
The team will invite attendees to contribute to a booklet. This will contain stories of hope and recovery and inspiring artwork. The team will offer this to people experiencing mental health challenges in the perinatal period.
Workshops at the birthday celebrations will highlight the interventions used by the team. For example, baby massage, pregnancy yoga, a forest school and mindfulness.
At the event will be Anthony Harrison, Chair of the Angela Harrison Trust.
Anthony's wife, Angela took her own life 4 months after the birth of her daughter, Sophie. Sadly, support from family, friends and colleagues were not enough to save Angela. The lack of services, information, and support available to people in the perinatal period, was clear to Anthony. This led him to set up the Angela Harrison Trust to support families in a similar position.
Anthony and the Angela Harrison Trust were key to the establishment of the Trust’s Specialist Perinatal Service.
This saw the service launch in August 2013. At that time, it was made up of 2 mental health nurses and a part-time consultant psychiatrist. Today, the service boasts a full multi-disciplinary team led by Ruth Marsden.
“We are so looking forward to celebrating our service and marking this wonderful milestone. The day will be a fantastic opportunity for our past and present service users to meet up and have fun. Children are welcome and there will be lots to keep them occupied.
“We want to remind people that help is available, and recovery is possible. This is why we want to collect people’s stories of recovery to put into a booklet. We will share with others when they are facing mental health difficulties.
“If you cannot come along but would still like to share your recovery story of hope, please get in touch.
“Any of our past or present service users are welcome to come along for as long as they would like. Please email us so we can share the event information with you.” Ruth Marsden
The free event will be from 10.30am to 2.30pm with lunch included. Email the Perinatal Team or call 01872 246 820 to reserve a place at the event.