International approval for Rochdale scheme to help young mums

Chloe Whitehead with her dreamcatcher and daughter, Esme

A Rochdale scheme to help young mums plan for the future has been adopted nationwide and is being trialled in the USA.

The dreamcatcher project sees family nurses, who work with expectant and new mums who are under 20 when they conceive, help clients set goals and aspirations for their own, and their baby’s, future.

The nurses provide craft materials to help the mums create a dreamcatcher and decorate it with luggage tags where they write their plans and hopes.

The first mum to trial the dreamcatcher was 20-year-old Chloe Whitehead from Littleborough.

Chloe, who now has a two-month-old daughter, Esme, added goals such as getting her own house and doing a make-up course at college.

She said: “Doing the dreamcatcher really helped me to think about the future.

“Up to then I hadn’t really thought that about what I wanted to do.”

Family nurse Rachel Beckett came up with the idea of using the dream-catcher within a pregnancy visit and this is now offered to young mums working with the Family Nurse Partnership across the country and is being trialled for a national roll out in the United States.

She said: “All the dreamcatchers are different as they represent the client’s hopes and dreams. They include feathers and dragonflies to represent the dreams flying free.

“Chloe gave me the idea as she’s so creative and we talked about how hard it can be to imagine where you want to be in three years.”

The Family Nurse Partnership, run by Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, sees expectant mums matched with an experienced family nurse who can give them, their partner and their immediate family advice from early pregnancy up to the child’s second birthday.

The nurses advise on everything from feeding and changing to looking after the mental health of new parents and helping ensure both parents bond with their baby in the weeks after birth.

The Family Nurse Partnership is funded by NHS England’s Greater Manchester Team and is available to all mums in the area who are under 20 at the date of conception.