By Sara Ford - MIN Media Lead, 15th February 2023.

Mums In Need 5 year anniversary

February is a significant month for Mums In Need. This month we celebrate 5 years of service as a registered charity supporting domestic abuse survivors.

To the beginning:

The Mums In Need journey began after Laura Riley, our CEO, lived  through her own experience of coercive control and post separation abuse. 

Once she had separated from her abuser she suffered relentless coercive abuse. She had nowhere to turn for support, and had no one who could understand the emotions that she felt. 

It was at this moment that she made the decision to help other women who are going through the same experiences and emotions as her.

So her journey began, supporting a small number of other mums online from a laptop in her bedroom in 2014.

In 2018 Laura registered Mums In Need as an official charity. 

In the 5 years of operating as a registered charity, Laura and the Mums In Need team have achieved so much, and have continued to support survivors of domestic abuse and post separation abuse.

What have Mums In Need achieved?

A unique support service:

Mums In Need offers a unique support service to mums in the Sheffield and surrounding areas, who are experiencing post separation abuse and coercive control. But what makes MIN unique?

1. Many other organisations support women to leave the abusive relationship, or will focus support towards dealing with violent behavior. Instead, we focus our support for mums who have already left the abusive relationship, but are experiencing ongoing coercive control. This can include behaviors such as counter parenting, abusive behaviour towards the children, using techniques to isolate the mother,  and excessive court applications. We are one of the few charities in the UK who specialise in this type of abusive behavior.

2. We are proud to support our mums with all of the support that they need from us, for as long as they need. Many of our mums are with us for up to 2 years. 

3. We provide our mums with a whole package of support via their own 1:1 Caseworker. They will be a regular contact for support, but will also give them access to:

•  practical support such such as legal support and educational workshops.

• Emotional support via 1;1 counseling, peer support, and wellbeing support sessions aimed at supporting domestic abuse survivors post trauma. 

• Personal wellbeing sessions, aimed to enhance emotional wellbeing, such as group fitness sessions, yoga and horticultural therapies via our support from our corporate partners.

See what our mums say - Here’s one example:

Our achievements:

Over the last 5 years we have:

1. Supported over 300 women with this comprehensive package of support. This is a huge achievement considering that some of our mums can be with us for up to 2 years.

2. Been encouraging political change and spreading awareness about coercive control, and its multifaceted reality. We have featured in many magazines, newspapers and TV shows. Check out our website to see what we have been up to.

3.Raised awareness about the charity and the work that we do.  Over time we have been present in the local community, hosting events, attending networking events, distributing posters and asking local businesses to support us with MIN charity tins. 

Our presence in the community has also been enhanced by the local business community, who have pulled together in lots of ways. 

• Ideal Modular homes for example have given us a rent free office space - to allow our team to work together collectively, and which allows us to invite the women who we support for several wellbeing sessions.

• China Red has our posters and MIN charity tins for show in their restaurants. Allowing their customers to see our brand and contact details if they need them. They have also been fundraising for us, by donating their regular service charge from their customers to MIN.

• Chroma Marketing has been supporting us with our social media campaign, and marketing tools, and have helped us to raise funds and awareness by hosting several fundraising campaigns on behalf of MIN.

• The Soroptimist Sheffield have also been supporting MIN by allocating us volunteers at our in person events, and have held several fundraising events on behalf of MIN.

• Follow this link to see an extensive list of all of the local businesses that have supported us on our 5 year journey.

4. We have developed a fantastic team. 5 years ago Laura started the journey on her own. She has employed many volunteers over time which she is really grateful for, as they allowed her to keep on supporting her mums. She has slowly built up a fantastic team of part time paid staff, who have helped MIN to grow significantly in the last couple of years.

We now have a paid CEO, 2 Caseworkers, Administrator, a Finance Lead and a Media and Marketing lead. We are so lucky to be in the position that we are in with so many paid staff to help our cause. 

We also have a fabulous team of volunteers and Trustees who work hard behind the scenes, helping to make sure that MIN are operating to the best standard as possible.

In the near future we are also hoping to employ another Caseworker which will mean that we have the availability to support even more women at the same time. 

5. We have secured regular, ongoing office space: In the last 5 years we have moved around the Sheffield area, seeking to find appropriate office space for our team to work. In the last year we have achieved a regular and safe office space with separate rooms that can be used by our team to host wellbeing sessions for our mums. Thank you IDMH.

5. We have secured office equipment for our team. This has allowed them to work efficiently, doing what they need to do to make MIN work.

6. We have developed an ever growing waiting list. During the  early days at MIN, we accepted women to our services as they contacted us. The charity was new, and awareness about MIN had just begun. 

As the charity has grown, the demand for our services has increased, which means that we now operate a waiting list. We are finding that more women are contacting us, seeking our specialist support. We currently have over 50 women on our waiting list, which clearly highlights the demand for such a charity, supporting women through their post separation abusive journey.

8. Education and empowerment. We are honored to be leading the Lived Leadership program, where we are empowering women to speak out, and take an interest in family court reform, develop partnerships and become Trustees.

What is next?

We are so proud to have been able to help the women that we have, and are really excited for what comes next.

We hope that in the future, we will be able to:

1. Support more women at any one time.

2. Provide an even better range of services to suit our mums.

3. Support women outside of our current parameter (Sheffield), this could be via phone, video, or email.

Time to celebrate:

To help us to celebrate our 5 year anniversary, we would love for our supporters to make a one off donation in February of just £5, in our £5 for 5 years of service campaign.

Each donation that we receive will really be appreciated and will really help towards our end goal - to support and keep on supporting more women who are experiencing post separation abuse.