By Amy Charles, Business Development Officer at Pause
The Pause Ambassadors are a group of women who have completed the Pause Programme and want to have greater involvement advocating for and raising awareness of Pause. The Ambassadors support, promote and represent Pause publicly, sharing their experiences and the impact that the Pause Programme has had on their lives. The aim of the role is to help more people to learn about, support and invest in Pause, so that we can reach more women.
Our first group of Pause Ambassadors have now been in post for a year. They met with me and some other members of the national team to reflect on their achievements and share some of their highlights so far. Here’s what they told us…
Meeting with civil servants to help them understand the women’s experiences and the impact this has on the family:
“We’re speaking to these important people who are in charge of these policies or procedures, or even who are interacting with mothers who have lost their children, and it’s changing the way they think and see things and even how they act. And we might not always be successful in getting the policy changes that we’re after but we’re certainly bringing awareness to it more and more and over time, that will only result in change”.
Getting involved in Pause’s fundraising by meeting funders and helping them understand the work Pause does:
“Meeting with the funders means longevity, and the more help and change that can happen”.
Co-creating our In a Mother’s Mind podcast, which has now been downloaded more than 3,000 times, to challenge attitudes and reduce stigma:
“I wanted to do it [help create the podcast] to help someone else, and to show professionals that we do change. We’re not stuck in the same boat as when the children were removed.”
And finally, the skills they’ve learnt, the relationships they’ve made, and the changes they’ve seen in themselves:
“On a personal level, I’ve got more confidence… I just feel like I’m actually making more impact, more change, more progress for loads of women out there… It feels amazing to be honest. It gives me purpose. I have a sense of purpose to make something good out of my bad experience”.
What next?
The Ambassadors have achieved a huge amount in a year, and they are determined to keep raising awareness of Pause to help create change. Their goals for the next year include helping to recruit and induct a second group of Pause Ambassadors, and to keep sharing their experiences and advocating for support for birth parents to be a statutory requirement.
