Our Story
The Hearts and Minds Partnership is a collaboration of two England-based perinatal mental health charities: Acacia Family Support in the Midlands and Smile Group in the North West.
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We’re not a membership organisation, but a thriving community of grassroots perinatal mental health services committed to sharing, learning and creating a coherent voice for our sector.​
Our programme of work focuses around:
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The creation of an England-wide interactive map of quality VCSE perinatal mental health services, to enable signposting to parents and healthcare professionals
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The development of trusted spaces to share learning, make new connections and talk about the challenges we collectively face
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The creation and delivery of dedicated training to support the practical realities of growing, developing and sustaining a VCSE perinatal service.
The two charities have come together, supported by The National Lottery Community Fund, with shared values and a vision to help connect, support and celebrate Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector perinatal mental health charities across England.
The Team
Nat Nuttall
(She / her)
Nat Nuttall is the Lead Partnership Coordinator. She is a mum of two and co-founder of perinatal mental health charity, Smile Group, based in the North West of England.
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Nat has lived experience of postnatal depression as well as growing a grassroots charity from scratch. She sees a great opportunity in the partnership’s work to connect, support and celebrate all the wonderful voluntary sector organisations in the perinatal mental health community.
Abi Yardimci
(She / her)
Abi Yardimci is the South West Co-ordinator. She is mum to two half-Turkish boys and is also an author, blogger and trained mindfulness teacher.
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Abi has lived experience of postnatal depression and anxiety as well as miscarriage. She also worked for 5 years as a peer support ‘Buddy’, supporting mums one-to-one and in groups. Abi is a passionate advocate for mental health discussions and action in every arena, but particularly in families and motherhood.
Sarah Hislam
(She / her)
Sarah Hislam is the Midlands Co-ordinator. She’s a mum of two and has lived experience of anxiety, depression and birth trauma.
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With a background in the voluntary sector, she set up and managed Parents in Mind perinatal mental health peer support project in Coventry and Warwickshire. Sarah also has a job as a counsellor at a Birmingham-based cancer support charity. She has a keen interest in all aspects of emotional wellbeing, and is a huge advocate of peer support.
Here is the whole team where we got to meet up in real life! Abi, Sarah and Nat are pictured with Ruth Williams (Smile Group) and Vicki Hook (Acacia Family Support) when we met in Birmingham for a planning day.
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Find out more about the spirit and values of what we do as well as sign up to our newsletter and become part of the community. If you have a general enquiry, please send it to: hello@heartsandmindspartnership.org
The Hearts & Minds Blog
Find out more about the work of the Hearts & Minds Partnership, further information about perinatal mental health and discussion topics about grassroots VCSE services by having a look at our blog.
