We’re delighted to announce that we will be working alongside The Lantern Initiative and local community partners to develop a new service focused on the wellbeing needs of pregnant women and new mums in our local Muslim community in Peterborough. This new project is funded by the Department of Health and Social Care.

We’re seeking to re-design our highly successful ‘Connecting Mums’, peer support and one to one perinatal services so that they meet the specific needs of the Muslim community, both practically and culturally. Our aim over the next two years is to support at least 250 local Muslim women who are at risk of – or who are already experiencing – poor mental health.

Since 2013, our Perinatal Service has worked with over 450 women across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough – however only a very small percentage have identified as being from a Muslim community. Peterborough has a large Muslim community (9.4% of population census’s 2011), and we know that women from Asian communities are disproportionately less likely to access community mental health provision.

We are seeking to explore why Muslim women are not currently seeking perinatal mental health support, and how we can adapt our current service provision to ensure our service truly meets the needs of Muslim communities.

We plan to do this by:

• Working with the local Muslim Community to design a package of support that is both relevant and accessible
• Really listening to Muslim women so we can understand – and overcome – the barriers to accessing professional mental health support
• Working together on community research and development to test and adapt new ideas

If you’re interested in finding out more about this project or would like to become involved in some way, please do contact us by email at perinatalservices@cpslmind.org.uk or by phone on 0300 303 4363 (9.30am – 5.30pm, Monday to Friday).