Hope House Counselling Centre, a faith-based NGO, approached us to collaborate on developing services.

Together with their director, Judy Strickland, we launched two new comprehensive maternal mental health services at Retreat Midwife Obstetric Unit and False Bay Hospital, both under-served communities.

The PMHP provided service development support for these health facilities, trained Hope House counsellors in maternal mental health, and provides ongoing supervision, monitoring and evaluation.

Contact

Tel: 021 715 0424

Cell: 084 557 7525

Cell: 087 808 8213

Fax: 086 524 1348

Antoinette Devasahayam

Antoinette provides counselling services at False Bay Hospital, where she previously worked as a staff nurse.

After 11 years in maternity care, counselling mothers-to- be feels like a continuation for me – there is a big gap in maternal mental health services. When you start doing the stats you see how many referrals there are - there have been 27 referrals out of 62 women that were screened in our first month of operation. That’s quite a big number. But, we are able to help with most problems, and it makes such a big difference to them.

Antoinette has been a counsellor for 3 years, working especially with trauma, termination of pregnancy and perinatal counselling.

Priscilla Marie Fry

As a resident of Retreat, Priscilla has been active in her community for decades. She sees her work as a perinatal counsellor as an extension of her commitment to her community.

I have been involved with counselling in my church since 1996, and I have seen how important it is to provide support for pregnant moms.

Priscilla qualified as a counsellor in 2010, and is completing her practical training with Hope House.

Judy Strickland

Judy Strickland is a registered counsellor, with 10 years experience. She is the founder of Hope House, which opened its doors in 2004 in response to the overwhelming need she saw in her community.

At Hope House we started seeing mothers with depression, but the bigger impact on me was that these teenage and adult mothers had problems reaching back to childhood, where their mothers had depression. So when I heard about the PMHP, which provides services during pregnancy to prevent this, Hope House was pleased to begin a partnership to deliver mental health services at False Bay Hospital and Retreat Midwife Obstetric Unit.

Judy has been married to her husband Allen for 38 years, has 3 children, 2 grandchildren and is a foster mother.