Thurrock Community Mothers is an informal and confidential home visiting programme in which friendly local mothers offer lots of useful ideas, reassurance and information ‘as one parent to another’.

A Community Mother knows first hand the realities of being a parent and can offer a ‘friendly listening ear’. Whilst she shares her own experiences, and those of other parents, she firmly believes that parents are the experts of their own children.

Community Mothers join the programme on a voluntary basis and are offered excellent ongoing training and support from experienced Community Development Nurses. A team of Community Mothers are now employed on the project. Some parents who are visited become Community Mothers themselves.

Other projects have been developed by Thurrock Community Mothers in response to the views of parents, including Breast Feeding Supporters, and the Thurrock national Skilled for Health pilot project.

The Thurrock Community Mothers scheme was first set up by the health visiting service in Tilbury, Essex in 1991 as the first pilot in the United Kingdom. The impetus that formed the foundation of the programme was the use of the Child Development Programme [developed by the Early Childhood Development Unit, Bristol University] and the successful Community Mothers Programme operating in Dublin since the 1980s.

Thurrock Community Mothers has gained a plethora of awards including a Queens Nursing Institute Innovation Award. In 1999 the European Mental Health Strategy Network identified Thurrock Community Mothers as one of six national models of good practice replicable to other countries, which promotes the mental health of 0-6 year olds. Numerous other Community Mothers schemes are now operating across the UK. [National networking]

Community Mothers are a very valuable local resource, able to reduce the isolation and stress that many parents experience by offering friendly, mother-to-mother support and encouragement. The home visiting programme is structured but non-prescriptive and is based on principles of empowerment and mutual respect. Community Mothers recognise the parents they work with as equals and as ‘experts’ in the rearing of their own children. The informal nature of the support offered enables them to outreach to parents who may be wary of professionals.

The programme also builds capacity within less advantaged communities by developing the skills of the Community Mothers recruited, encouraging them to gain accreditation for their learning and experience and to take ownership by gaining employment on the programme as it grows and develops.

The programme was first set up by the health visiting service in Tilbury, Essex. In planning the programme, health visitors talked to local parents and used anecdotal comments from them together with their own knowledge of the locality to build up a picture of what was needed.

We aim to build on local community skills and strengths so as to promote the health, parenting and basic skills of parents with young children.

We achieve this by:

• Sharing new ideas, offering a ‘friendly listening ear’ as a peer and equal
• Helping parents to build up their confidence and skills whilst the children are small
• Helping parents to ‘nip any early difficulties in the bud’ so that any problems don’t become entrenched and difficult to resolve
• Nurturing and encouraging parents to recognise their own skills and achievements
• Encouraging parents to improve their own and their children’s health, learning and all round development
• Alleviating isolation and depression
• Nurturing community participation and involvement
• Helping parents to access extra support when needed
• Building on the skills and strengths already within local communities by providing new training, learning and employment opportunities

Experienced and trustworthy mothers, known as volunteer Community Mothers are very carefully recruited from the local community. They are given comprehensive initial and ongoing training and guidance by experienced Community Development Nurses [training]. Community Mothers share an interesting monthly home visiting programme with other parents in their own communities. Useful light-hearted cartoon materials [cartoons] covering a whole range of health and parenting tips, are shared during each ongoing monthly visit. Parents are encouraged to find their own way forward and try out new ideas for themselves or their children between each home visit. Community Mothers also organise parent-to-parent groups.

If parents want to brush up their reading, writing or maths skills, a Community Mother tutor can guide them into a local class or offer initial one-to-one learning support in the home [Skilled for Health].

All parents in the local area are automatically offered a Community Mother following the birth of a new baby, or after moving into the area. Parents who are facing difficulties are also referred by community workers such as health visitors, and by parents themselves.

A dedicated arm of the programme provides outreach to homeless hostels and traveller sites.

Extensive and ongoing evaluation demonstrates a wide range of benefits including:

• Reduced isolation / depression in mothers
• Raised maternal self-esteem / confidence / positive feelings
• Improvements to child behaviour difficulties
• Improved cognitive stimulation of children / sharing of ideas for improving development
• Improved maternal and child nutrition
• Increased immunisation uptake
• Improvements to speech development
• Improvements to child safety
• Improved access to a wide range local services including health, parenting support groups and services, adult education classes
• Volunteer skills development: accredited learning [training – Open College Accreditation] computer skills, basic skills needs awareness [Skilled for Health], basic skills tutor training,
• Increased access to employment opportunities: including community development posts, basic skills tutors [Skilled for Health], breast feeding support worker posts [Breast Feeding], smoking cessation advisers, fitness training instructors and other posts in the health and social care field