I'm Sandra, I live in Ennerdale, and my children were born at West Cumberland Hospital.  I have been involved in relating the service user/ family perspective in maternity and children's services since my youngest son was 18 months old, and he is now at secondary school.  Maternity is such an important time in a woman s life, and her partner/ family's life. There is room for all to have a say in local services and lots of opportunities to be involved and make a positive difference. I'm Chair of West Cumbria Maternity Voices Partnership Group and acting Chair of the Carlisle & Eden MVP.

I’m Gail, I joined Maternity Voices officially in 2019 after a bit of contact from 2015 following my first maternity experience. I run a pregnancy and infant loss support group called Silent Footprints through local charitable CIC - Always Another Way based near West Cumberland Hospital. After experiencing losses myself in 2014 & 2015 and many operations, I finally became a mother in 2016 and use my experiences to help others in similar situations. I’m a Mental Health First Aider and ASIST (suicide intervention) trained to run my groups. I like being a part of Maternity Voices still now as I have my own personal experiences, also feedback from my Silent Footprints group members anything that they have experienced also, so I find it a good way to link the two together

I'm Janine , a mental health and psychological wellbeing practitioner at Together We Community Interest Company. 

My background is working in Improving Access to Psychological Therapies, lecturing in mental health and NHS secondary Mental Health Care. Specialist interest areas are older adults MH, Personality Disorders and promoting basic common factor therapeutic skills in staff.

I have recently had a little boy, so I am also a service user. He is doing great! I enjoy walking, exercising and have three pooches who I enjoy spending my time with.

I am Nicki, I have two grown up sons 20 and 22yrs who are at University, and have recently moved to Cumbria from the North East.  I have a background in Health Visiting and Sick Children’s Nursing and have worked in many managerial roles in the NHS for over 30 years. I am looking forward to being more involved with the Maternity Voices Partnership and with colleagues in North Cumbria Midwifery Service.  I am passionate about delivering the best NHS services for babies, children, young people and families.

I am mum to Joshua and Darcy, twins born at 23 weeks gestation. Due to their extreme prematurity we spent several months on the NICU at both the University Hospital of North Tees and the RVI in Newcastle. The twins had a rocky neonatal journey but are now thriving 5 year olds. Joshua has ongoing health conditions and learning difficulties and I balance being a carer for him with working and volunteering for a neonatal charity, Leo’s. I am a trustee and peer supporter for Leo’s and am passionate about helping other neonatal families who have been through similar experiences to mine. Joining the MVP is one of the ways I hope to give voice to other parents and try to give something back to my community.

My name is Dane, and I’m a Dad on the West Cumbria Maternity Voices Group. Prior to a few months before the birth of our son I was completely in the dark about pregnancy, birth and such like. Call it naivety (anxious) but I was quite worried about the whole process.
To help me and my wife suppress these anxious thoughts we decided to explore Hypnobirthing and what it entails.
After discovering the choices and information out there I joined MVP to voice my opinions to help make this information more readily available for all Dads. 

I'm Jenny Fye and I'm a HypnoBirthing Practitioner and mum to 4 awesome girls, who were all born at home under the care of our fabulous community midwife team. I joined the Maternity Voices team as I am passionate about helping women have a positive birthing experience. I believe local women and their families should have a say in the care they receive during their pregnancy and birth, and it's a great platform to help shape and improve local maternity services.

I’m Laura Rodgers, one of the 2 Infant Feeding Coordinators for the Health Visiting Service at NCIC NHS Trust. I cover the North and West of the county and my counterpart, Beth Rengers covers the South and East. Our role consists of providing a specialist service to families with more complex infant feeding issues, coordinating the Health Visiting service work towards Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) Accreditation, as well as the development of policies, staff training and strategic work within the service. I have my own little boy who taught me that feeding babies is often not straightforward! This made me want to do what I can to support other families in their infant feeding journey, no matter how they feed their child. Being part of the MVP gives me the opportunity to listen to and act on feedback from families, build relationships with other services and support the excellent work of the local MVP network.

My name is Belinda Rae and I provide administration support for the Maternity Voices groups in both the West and Carlisle & Eden areas.  I work as a Team Secretary within the Maternity Department and am based in West Cumberland Hospital.  I provide administration/secretarial support for the Head of Midwifery and the Senior Midwifery Management Team, as well as the Maternity team in general and work closely with Maternity Voices to ensure effective meetings and communication with both the public and staff.  I enjoy attending the meetings (and can sometimes get a little more involved than I should!) and I am passionate about Maternity and the provision of excellent services for women in our area.  I look forward to seeing you at one of our meetings.

I am Christine Davey, I live near Cockermouth and have three young daughters, all of whom were born at West Cumberland Hospital. After my first birth I had a retained placenta and needed immediate consultant care to stop haemorrhaging. My second and third births were less eventful, but I found a lot of strength from the excellent midwife led care that I received during labour and from being allowed to birth actively.

I joined MVP as I am passionate about local women being able to access the consultant and midwife led care that they require, so that they can birth how they choose, without fear. I am also huge supporter of continuity of care and good post partum care, particularly mental health and breastfeeding support. 

I'm Tamsin, after the birth of my son I trained to become a hypnobirthing teacher after having a lovely positive birth and felt that it was something all women should have the choice to access. I set up West Cumbria Hypnobirthing and I love it! Being involved in such a special experience for Women and their partners is so rewarding and truly magical to be part of. I joined MVP as I wanted to be more actively involved, locally, with maternity services so that women and their birth partners voices were at the forefront of any changes and influential in any decision making. I am very passionate about all aspects of maternity care but especially continuity of care, homebirth, birth partners role including birth environments and informed choices. 

I’m Rosey and I’m a stay at home Mum to my 3 year old son and active User Rep on West Cumbria Maternity Voices. I joined Maternity Voices after I had my son at West Cumberland Hospital and was keen to help support the services in any way I can. I firmly believe that women and families from all walks of life, no matter what circumstances they find themselves in, deserve the best possible care for delivering their babies and supporting their families – and that they should have a say in what care they receive! Maternity Voices is a great way of reaching out to people and finding out their experiences and views about the things that matter most to them.

I'm Emma, a local primary school teacher and mum to an almost 3 year old little girl who was conceived through IVF and born under the fantastic care and support from the team at West Cumberland Hospital. Currently, I am pregnant with my second child and in my 3rd trimester, so also a service user. I joined the MVP group just after my daughter was born. I was keen to be involved in sharing my experiences of fertility issues, my pregnancy and labour journey, and ensuring the women and men of West Cumbria have a voice to access the best possible maternity care. The MVP group is a fantastic platform where we can share the concerns, experiences and issues of local people, in the hope we can help shape the service to reflect the care that is needed. 

My name is Jan,
I have worked for over 25 years supporting and advocating for families during their most difficult times following life changing events and trauma, this alongside my own personal experiences of maternity care has given me the passion and determination to ensure that all individuals are listened to by their healthcare providers, heard, and their wishes respected. 
I work for People First as a Maternity and Neonatal Independent Senior Advocate.  People have always been at the heart of everything I do both personally and professionally.
I am looking forward to working with Maternity Voices Partnership to help champion the voices of women, birthing people, and their families in shaping local maternity services and system change.

I'm Sam and I'm a director of Together We CIC, I am also a mother to a 4 year old boy and 3 year old girl. 

I became a part of Maternity Voices for a few different reasons, "Together We Carry" run sling advice and support groups for families within Copeland and Allerdale. Often I was hearing anxiety from our service users about the future of maternity services. I also heard regularly that expectant mothers felt they had no choice in how their maternity experience went, this alongside my own birth experiences made me want to get involved, to feedback what I have learned and to help give service users a voice. 

National: For me, our maternity services are vital for the ongoing & sustainable development of our community. In order for us to continue to develop our own unique services we need to have our voices heard & this is why I volunteer.

Local: Following the birth of my second son I have been experiencing some mental health issues & got in touch with my local MVP group for help & support. I now want to help change & enrich the maternity experience for others in the hope of reducing the risk of situations like mine. I want to share my story with others so that they know it is ok, not to be ok. Mental health is as important as physical health. We have a unique opportunity to voice our needs, wants & concerns with those who have the power to make an impact. We as parents have certain requirements at a beautiful & stressful time in our lives. We need to feel valued, listened to & important. We need to know that our views count & that we are not just on a conveyor belt. One size does not fit all & this is why our MVP group is so important.

Hi I am Julie, Project Lead Midwife for Continuity of Carer for NCIC. I am a mum of two grown up boys, one born in London and one born in Carlisle.

I have been a Midwife for over 27 years, mainly working in the community setting.  I have also been a Specialist Midwife for Teenage Pregnancy. We are very pleased to have our first Continuity of Care team, the Caldew Team  in Carlisle, which commenced in November and we hope that we will be able to develop further teams in North Cumbria. I look forward to being more involved in MVP.