About Us
Our Journey brings us here today
Our Vision and Mission
Holistic Mums is a volunteer led project designed and developed by mums who have lived experience of perinatal mental illness. Our services include peer support for mums suffering from perinatal mental illness, advice and support and education for parents in the early years.
Our vision is to improve the mental and physical health of mothers and children through the provision of evidence based early intervention programmes.
Our mission is to help mothers in our community and beyond to learn about and embrace the holistic lifestyle to improve their physical and mental wellbeing.
CNP Community Champions Project
It all began with an idea, supported by the Colin Early Intervention Initiative in 2016. To support the growth of local community champions to make a difference in children’s lives through Early Intervention Initiatives. Volunteer Champions were recruited, trained, and empowered to deliver their own community-led projects. Two women brought forward an idea that would make a difference to the lives of Mothers; to provide education on holistic approaches to health and wellbeing to new and expectant mums. They committed a lot of time to research, training, networking, and writing! They called their project, Colin Holistic Mums. To date, the project has supported over 135 women in the local community and has delivered over 200 training places for a range of health and wellbeing initiatives.
In 2024 Holistic Mums became a charity in it’s own right. With 80% of the committee consisting of past participants of our programme. Our committee is people led with 90% lived experience of mental health during the perinatal period. We understand how mums feel and our programme is non-judgemental providing a safe space for peer support.
The Community Innovators’ Project
In 2019, the Community Champions participated in the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, Community Innovators’ Programme. Lagmore Community Forum was funded for Holistic Mums and supported the project through this funding. This programme utilised a design thinking and creative problem-solving approach to create solutions for social challenges. Through the process and engaging with service users, Colin Holistic Mums designed Holistic Mums: a blend of Education, Advocacy, and Peer Support to improve maternal health and wellbeing. With the support of a CFNI Seed Fund of £10,000, the project now has an established brand name, website, and a range of high-quality tools and resources including a reflective journal and a facilitators manual, so that ‘Holistic Mums’ can grow and make a difference in more mum’s lives in more communities across NI.
The National Lottery Telecommunity Fund Awards for All
Holistic Mums is very grateful to be awarded funding by The National Lottery Fund Awards for 2 years with £20,000 funding.
This funding will be used to fund a 2 year programme to empower new and expectant mothers during the perinatal period.
The funding will support Holistic Mums to provide weekly workshops focused on positivity, self-care, peer support to improve health and wellbeing.
Workshops will empower mothers to be more self aware, learn how to build resilience, prioritise self care, promote positive self talk, and meet other new and expectant mums for peer support. This grant will also assist Holistic Mums to market and promote the project.
“It is our vision that every community should have its own Holistic Mums group and we are working to achieve this goal. With this support and the commitment of our volunteers and community partners, we have and will continue to develop resources and opportunities for Holistic Mums to grow! ”