Neonatal counselling to return after £97k grant
PA MediaPart of a neonatal charity's counselling and trauma support service will return after it was awarded a £97,000 grant.
Leo's in Middlesbrough, which supports families who have experienced the loss of a baby or difficult births, will receive the money over the next three years from The Pilgrim Trust to support women aged 16 to 25.
Director Lottie King said the charity was "very excited" to bring back the counselling offer it had to stop in November 2024 due to funding gaps, saying the year and a half without it had been "really tough".
She said the money would also help expand its baby loss service across the Tees Valley to places including Stockton, Darlington and Hartlepool.
The neonatal counselling and trauma service for younger women would hopefully be up and running in the next four to six weeks, King said.
It had been the only dedicated service of its kind in the region and without it people needing counselling had to go through their GP with no guarantee they would see a specialist.
The Pilgrim Trust, a grant-giving charity, said the money from its Young Women in Mind programme would support a group "frequently excluded from statutory maternal mental health services".
Between the new funding and existing support from Children in Need, King said all its neonatal services were secured for the next three years.
She said older women would get the same peer support team, just not the counselling offer.
She added the charity was looking to fund more support for families in the long-term.
"We're all just over the moon," King said.
"Funding's just incredibly hard to get at the minute, so to secure key services for the next three years, it's just a relief."
