YOUNG MUMS ROCK!

Melton Women's Wellbeing Action Research Project

"Even if you've got a boyfriend, if you're not married, you're seen as an 'unwed' mother. And if you're unwed, you're seen as unfit, somehow inferior."
– Melton Women and Wellbeing project participant

About Young Mums Rock!

"As a young mother, you feel like you're doing it on your own."
Young mums rock logo

Young Mums Rock! is an action research project that aims to promote the mental health of young mothers living in Melton. The project works with young mothers and service providers to develop a greater understanding of the social and cultural factors that impact on their health and supports the young mothers to identify and undertake actions to promote the mental health and wellbeing of young mums.

Young mums are the experts

"It's hard to walk in to a doctor, being pregnant and young. A doctor said to us we should have waited until we had steady jobs – which we already did! He'd just assumed."

Young Mums Rock! recognises that young mums have experiences, information and ways of doing things that can be shared with each other. The project aims to find ways to increase interaction amongst young mums and build relationships with service providers.

Through a series of workshops with young mothers who were part of an existing parenting group, we were able to explore fun and friendly ways in which we could do this.

Involving service providers

We have had great support for the project from local services including Djerriwarrh Community Health Services, Melton Shire Council and other local and regional health and social services. The project is exploring service providers' understandings of the issues relating to young mums’ mental health, and ways to bring young mothers and service providers together to promote mothers' wellbeing, and to support community action.

What did the workshops achieve?

"Being able to help people – I contributed something to the community."

Young mums worked with service providers to host an event day and produce a brochure. The very popular 'Young Mums Rock' day enabled young mothers to meet service providers, obtain health information, take part in fun activities and make connections with each other.

It was also the launch of the Young Mums Rock! brochure, which aimed to reach out to isolated young mothers, and educate services and the community about the realities of young mothers' lives. This brochure can be downloaded or ordered free from our catalogue.

Broadening the project focus

In a second phase of the project, the focus was widened to work with a diversity of mothers from a range of communities in the Melton area and beyond. This included a follow-up event on International Women’s Day 2006, which also allowed mothers to connect with each other, obtain health information, meet service providers and have an enjoyable day out.

It included an exhibition, ‘Tears of Joy, Tears of Frustration’, of art produced through a series of workshops with existing mothers groups, including groups for Indigenous, Spanish-speaking, Macedonian, young, single and same-sex mothers, and a group for women who have experienced mental illness.

FIND OUT MORE: Project resources

A number of print and other project resources have been produced. These are intended for use by women in the community, service providers and others in the ongoing effort to promote women’s mental health and wellbeing.

The exhibition has now been published on the Women’s Health West’s website. We have also produced a series of Action Resource Sheets, summarising methods used in the project, including:

promoting women’s health (PDF 55KB)
women-centred story-telling (PDF 46KB)
action research (PDF 55KB), and
advocacy (PDF 55KB).

Additional resources available online include:

A one page handout (PDF 61KB) on the Young Mums Rock project.
The Young Mums Rock brochure (PDF 290KB - also available to order in hard copy through our free catalogue)
A handout (PDF 51KB) on the life stories of two inspirational young mothers
A narrative evaluation of the project done at Stage 1, as part of a Department of Human Services evaluation project
A journal article on the project originally published in the New Community Quarterly
A presentation on the Young Mums Rock project given to the national Women and Depression Conference, April 2006. Please note this section requires Javascript, and the pictures take some time to load.

Other, non-electronic project resources include print copies of the Young Mums Rock brochure (available to order through our free catalogue), a detailed exhibition catalogue and a fridge magnet listing local services. Contact Women's Health West to order.