James Dimmock

HAVING A BABY IS SUPPOSED TO BE THE MOST JOYOUS EXPERIENCE OF OUR LIVES, BUT HOW DO YOU COPE WITH THE CHALLENGES, ESPECIALLY WITH THE ADDED STRESSOR OF ISOLATION?

The Mummy Buddy Program was created by the Psychology of Active, Healthy Living group at UWA to help and support first-time mums. We now need your support to help mothers from across Australia via a web platform, which will be used to train mothers in the program and create New Mother-Mummy Buddy partnerships. Our goal is to take it to the next level at JCU and expand the program nationally so we can help mums all over Australia. 

See the original study here http://crowdresearch.uwa.edu.au/project/mummy-buddy-program-trial-study

What do we want to do?

Our aim is to offer the Mummy Buddy program free-of-charge to any first-time mother in Australia who would appreciate the support from an experienced, trained mother.

How does it work?

The Mummy Buddy program is a peer support program for first-time mothers. The program trains experienced volunteer mothers (i.e., Mummy Buddies) in best-practice methods for social support, and then pairs these mothers with inexperienced, first-time mothers.

How are we going to do this?

We would like to develop a website that would allow us to help first-time mothers throughout Australia (including regional, rural and remote areas). The website would be used to recruit new mothers and volunteer Mummy Buddies, and train mothers in social support and self-care. After the development of the web platform, we will undertake an evaluation of the program on mothers' mental health and wellbeing.

Thanks to the support of James Cook University and other partners, most of our costs are covered, but we need $4,400 to work with a web development agency to help us formulate a web platform to recruit mothers into the program, and to provide social support and self-care training videos for mothers. Any additional money for the program (beyond $4,400) will help with promotional efforts and with extra functionality of the website.