Nurture Wellness

Nurture Wellness Beyond Birth Mental Wellbeing Practitioner & MHFA Instructor : preventing poor mental health during pregnancy and throughout parenthood.

17/04/2026

Ensure your mental health knowledge, awareness, and skills are up to date with our MHFA Refresher course.

We believe that mental health should be treated equally to physical health. Just like physical first aid, we recommend MHFAiders take the MHFA Refresher course every three years to ensure their mental health knowledge, awareness, and skills are up to date.

This course is designed for individuals who are already certified Mental Health First Aiders or who have completed a Level 3 Qualification in Mental Health.

Completing the MHFA Refresher with us gives you ongoing membership to the Association of Mental Health First Aiders® – England’s first and only membership body of its kind. As well as access to ongoing learning and expert support, members gain the benefits of being part of a national movement for change in mental health.

By attending the course, Mental Health First Aiders will renew their skills and update their knowledge of mental health supports. They’ll learn to:

- Recognise those who may be experiencing poor mental health and provide them with first-level support and early intervention
- Encourage a person to identify and access sources of professional help and other supports
- Practise active listening and empathy
- Have a conversation with improved mental health literacy around language and stigma
- Discuss the role in depth, including boundaries and confidentiality
- Practise self-care
- Know how to use the MHFAider Support App®
- Know how to access a dedicated text service provided by Shout and ongoing learning.

Head to our website to register your place.

Www.nurturewellness.org.uk

15/04/2026

Have you noticed that when something happens that fires you up, gets you angry, frustrated, feeling overwhelmed, scared or sad you act in ways or say things that you wouldn't normally? Well your reponse is a natural way of dealing with your emotions.

Our body is in stress mode, on high alert, ready to protect us. When this happens we tend to react to situations because our monkey brain has taken over, meaning we don't think logically about what is causing us to feel like that, it's our innate response.

However, when we react like this, it's not always the best way to respond and it can often leave us feeling annoyed or makes the situation worse.

Thinking of our emotions like a traffic light reminds us that in order to respond in a more appropriate way, we need to take a bit of time out. I don't mean for a long time, it can just be a few seconds or minutes.

What our body needs is time to regulate and bring calm so we can make more informed decisions and take action based on all the information we have.

It's not always easy to do and it takes lots of practice and conscious effort but the more we do it the easier it becomes.

For me, I find taking a few deep breaths really helps before I respond, or I have a clay cross anchor which I made last year at our Mothers Circle. If it's near me I feel it, feeling every detail on it, or when I see it it reminds me to take a few deep breaths.

The next time you have strong emotions why don't you take a few deep breaths, or walk away from the situation for a minute (if it's safe to do so). See if your body calms and if you respond differently to how you usually respond.

Or do you do this already? How do you keep calm during a storm?

If you try it, let me know how it goes for you.

I often refer to Maslows Hierarchy of Need when talking about mental health as to be our best and achieve optimal physic...
13/04/2026

I often refer to Maslows Hierarchy of Need when talking about mental health as to be our best and achieve optimal physical and mental wellbeing we have basic needs that we all need to have fulfilled.

If this is new to you then Maslow is a theory of motivation in psychology which proposes that for humans to reach their optimal selves, they have various needs that need fulfilling (illustrated here). To reach self-actualization we need to have other needs met first.

I like this theory as it's a reminder not to overlook our basic needs. The trouble is not everyone is having their needs met because of things out of their control ... world events and government choices have pushed the cost of living up, meaning families are struggling to buy healthy meals, have a warm home, buy adequate clothing, pay their rent/mortgage, aren't sleeping because they are worried about their finances and the state of the world.

Businesses are struggling to stay open because of financial implications introduced by the government and people can't afford to spend money on things they once did. Businesses closing = people left without jobs and without having their basic physiological and safety needs met.

Sometimes we can't do things on our own.

Sometimes we can't meet our own needs without the help of others.

Asking for help is ok, it's nothing to be ashamed of. What matters is you get the help you need to have your basic human needs met, so you can then think logically about what your next step in life needs to be.

Have you taken time recently to reflect on how you are feeling mentally and physically and what's impacting that?

Are you getting your basic needs met?

Do you need to access help to have your needs met?

Citizens Advice are a great source of support for lots of different concerns. Are there any other organisations that have really helped you? Let us know in the comments below.


30/03/2026

You read it right, our website is finally up and running 🙌🙌

You can book you place on our courses via our website.

Click the link in our bio 👆

Sometimes you need to read or hear some feedback to give you confidence and motivation to keep going. Here's some feedba...
26/03/2026

Sometimes you need to read or hear some feedback to give you confidence and motivation to keep going.

Here's some feedback from our March MHFA Refresher course and it was just what I needed to read.

Seeing peoples knowledge and confidence grow around mental health gives me job satisfaction.

Reading this comment from a learner about my skills as a trainer made me think I can do it.

Sometimes you look at other people and think 'why would someone choose my courses over theirs?'

Sometimes you think 'I'm just not good enough'.

Sometimes you need to get feedback from people who use your services or those around you to see just how good you are and that you should keep going.

Asking for feedback is never easy, I always dread opening it in case someone has highlighted an area for development. And if they have, I sometimes feel miffed for a few minutes 😉 but I take it onboard, I learn from it and do something about it.

Feedback makes you motivated to do your best, to keep learning and to grow and to face that fear. Because no one's perfect, we all have areas of development and only good can come from it.

Have you asked for feedback recently?

The face of someone who has handed in her last assignment for the Level 2 in Counselling Skills course 🙌🙌It's taken lots...
19/03/2026

The face of someone who has handed in her last assignment for the Level 2 in Counselling Skills course 🙌🙌

It's taken lots of 6am get ups before the family woke up, studying around work, family life and powering through when I've felt shattered, but I did it.

I've really enjoyed it and not found it hard work at all. I guess it shows that this is the right time for me to do it. After many years of questioning if I should do it, I took the plunge and I'm really glad I did.

The hard work isn't over yet, there's many more years of studying to be done but step 1 is complete ✔️

Thanks hubby for taking the family pressures when needed, for being my guinea pig and listening to me talk about theory and skills so I can get my head around it.

Thank you dear friends for motivating me, keeping me accountable and sharing your words of wisdom.

Thank you my babies for keeping me on my toes, for the sleepless nights and your cuddles. This is for you 🧡🧡🧡

If you want to do something, always remember your why. It might feel impossible at the minute but keep chipping away.

Listen to your intuition and body, if it feels right keep on going, if not stop and re-evaluate. Now might not be the right time, but next year might be.

🌟🌟

16/03/2026

These stats are provided by MBRACCE-UK and the NHS.

Read them and then tell me that mental health during pregnancy and the perinatal period shouldn't be prioritised for mums AND dads!! 🤔

We've always focussed on preparing physically for the birth of our baby ...

Where will we give birth
C-section or natural birth
Do we want drugs or not
What we nees in our hospital bag

But what about our mental health??

Our mental health will help drive our pregnancy, our labour, the birth, every stage of parenting.

It will help to shape our babies entire life.

Yet only recently has it become apparent that we should be talking about it in our antenatal appointments. That it does matter.

I gave birth in 2018 and 2023 and I can say that I was only asked once about my mental health in both pregnancies, my husband wasn't asked at all.

If we want to see less families struggling through their pregnancy and into parenthood, we need to help them prepare mentally and emotionally.

We need to make this a priority conversation that is open to ALL families no matter what their socio-economic status, their ethnicity, their gender.

Growing and raising a baby takes mental, and emotional strength, not just physical.

Children and families need the best start in life 🧡

A little update for you. Hopefully it will all run smoothly this time 🤞🤞
16/03/2026

A little update for you.

Hopefully it will all run smoothly this time 🤞🤞

Are you looking to attend a Mental Health First Aid course?Or are you already a MHFAider but need to refresher your skil...
12/03/2026

Are you looking to attend a Mental Health First Aid course?

Or are you already a MHFAider but need to refresher your skills and knowledge?

We have both courses running in May, our MHFA course is at the Ann Robertson Centre in Canterbury and our Refresher course is online through Zoom.

Get in touch for more details.

11/03/2026

Todays focus is on young peoples mental health in England from 2023-2024.

These stats are from The Big Mental Health Report 2025 by Mind and the Office of National Statistics for su***de data.

Once again it's a sad read.

Why do you think our children and young people are suffering like this?

Some people have said it's because of ...
Our education system
Neurodiversity and systems that don't support children properly
Social media
World events
Experiencing trauma during childhood
Not having the right care or nurturing environment to grow and develop
Experiencing grief at a young age
Living in poverty
Lack of professional support

When you think about the children around you who may be struggling with their mental health, what is the cause?

What do you think we can do about this?

How can we change these figures?

Make more professional help available?

Educate everyone on mental health so we can support each other better?

What's your thoughts?? I'd love to hear them.

05/03/2026

Our first MHFA training of 2026 is live and waiting for your registrations.

Join me for two days of learning about mental health which includes:
what is mental health,
what shapes our mental health,
how to preserve our mental health,
common mental illnesses,
how to support someone in a crisis situation,
build confidence in talking about mental health,
strengthen your communication skills in starting conversations about mental health,
help available,
understand the importance of boundaries,
and more!

It's a busy two days talking about an important topic where you will develop skills that could save lives.

We will be running our course from the Ann Robertson Centre in Canterbury 9-5pm on both days.

Investment in this course is £250. This includes three years of ongoing support from myself and MHFA England which comprises of networking events, free webinars and learning opportunities, a Support App, an opportunity to join the Association of Mental Health First Aiders.

You will also be able to access check ins with Nurture Wellness to make sure you are never alone.

You will leave feeling motivated to make a difference with tools to help you make that difference!

Head to the link in our bio where you can book your place.

Address

Canterbury

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm

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