Thanks for looking at my fundraising page. I’m very proud to join the Acacia Family Support team for the Royal Sutton Fun Run this year.

For me, charity events need to be a challenge. The Royal Sutton Fun Run is a wonderful annual community event with a great atmosphere. However, the route is 8.5 miles of HILLS! It takes place mostly in our gorgeous Sutton Park…but….HILLS! I have never known a race route to be so brutal, yet so many of us sign up every year 😆.

There are two sides to my story behind my support for this amazing charity. The first is my own story where I suffered with post-natal depression, completely changed as a person and was very lucky to receive help from Acacia Family Support, who saved my life. 

I know that I am very lucky and privileged to have received such wonderful care and support from this charity. This brings me to the other side of the story of my support. This kind of care is not available everywhere, and, in order to receive the support I got, there are fundraisers, supporters and volunteers that work their arses off so that more people can get the help they need…and believe me when I say that it is desperately needed more than you might think.

I have now lost 3 friends to this kind of illness, be it post-natal depression or post-partum psychosis. I have named two of them on this page. 

My strong, angry feeling was, ‘It wasn’t supposed to happen to her.’ I still struggle with that attitude to this day. The truth of the matter is that it can happen to absolutely anyone, and it does. Nasty or nice, famous or not, nobody is immune.

So, I know that I can’t change the past, but what I can do is support this wonderful charity that is striving to ensure that no family should suffer alone with pre- and post-natal depression. 

Acacia Family Support cover the Birmingham area in the UK at the moment. They have goals of going national so that every family can reach help when they’re in need. They have services for Mums, Dads and a specialist Young Parent service too. You have to check out their website to see the amazing things they do for others. 

In my experience, I had a personal befriending service every week, group work, cognitive behavioural therapy, home visits when things were particularly bad, close links with the Mother and Baby unit at the QE Hospital, coffee mornings…even a spa pamper-style treatment whilst my baby was safe in the creche that they provide during the sessions.

I owe my life to this charity, and I know that I will spend the rest of it offering support in whatever way I can to help them reach more families. I do this because someone else would’ve been fundraising so that I could receive help. Now it’s time to give back.

Thank you for reading my story, and I hope that you can help in any way 😊.