In your work, you see many young (expectant) mothers and
their partners. Some of them are struggling: since having a child, life has
become quite complicated. Having a child is not all fun, they discover. The stress of parenthood becomes too much for them. Sometimes, on top of that, they face problems around work, housing or money. You would like to help them, but actually this is not part of your job. What can you do?
In many cases, informal care can be a godsend. Women
and their partners can then draw on their own networks. There are people there who give them just that crucial helping hand that makes things a little easier.
A friend who babysits one afternoon a week, a neighbour who helps hang a light. Simple. But for many of these parents, it is not so simple. After all, they don’t have a clear picture of who they can ask for help.
MattieClick is an initiative of Angelique van Dam and is based on a method she previously developed with her organisation My Life With (MLM). She has now made this method suitable for young (expectant) parents. With MattieClick, parents get a better grip on their situation.
MattieClick is part of the European project PATH / Interreg2Seas. In this project, Dutch, English, French and Belgian partners work together. All partners develop projects to better support young (expectant) parents in the often difficult first years of their child’s life.
Maasstad Hospital, one of the Dutch partners inPATH, is closely involved with MattieClick.
Samantha is the mother of Duke, who is 4 months “Of course I’m happy, but I didn’t expect to be so tired. Duke cries every night and Remco, my boyfriend, sleeps through everything. How will that be when I go back to work soon? It would be nice if there was someone I could talk to about this and who could help me a bit. But how do I find someone like that?”
