from yaprap October-November 2011
by Isabel Seidel
yaprap Feature Writer
Bump is an innovative mentoring program for pregnant girls and young mums. The many young mums who attend the program experience the power of having a mentor who listens to them and who won’t judge them. The girls can just be themselves and talk about anything they need to or want to talk about. The aim of Bump is to support pregnant girls and young mums up to the age of 23 in a safe and positive environment through weekly mentoring and monthly personal development workshops.
The program is run by the Young Love Foundation, which is a not-for-profit organisation contributing to the health and wellbeing of young people in our community. At the YAPA Youth Work Conference, I attended an uplifting presentation on Bump by the Director of the Young Love Foundation, Vicki Condon. We were lucky to have a young mum and a mentor also talk at this presentation. The presentation included a taste of one of the personal development workshops called dream, giving me a sense of why Bump has been so successful at attracting young mums.
Many young mums come to Bump having experienced loneliness and social isolation. They may be reluctant to talk to a counsellor and often don’t know any other young mums in their community. They are referred to the program by midwifes, social workers, youth refuges, and some young mums self-refer. Each young woman is matched with a mentor, an experienced mum. The mentors build up a relationship with the young mums by visiting them once a week and taking them out of their house to a café or park to check in with them about how their week has been. Arguably, the mentors are the key to the success of the program. They seem to be trained well (they must complete 6 weeks of TAFE training) and are provided with support once they begin their mentoring roles.
After listening to the young mum speak at the YAPA conference, it seems to me that one of the greatest strengths of Bump is building a community of young mums that can go on to support each other. The free monthly personal development workshops bring the young mums in the program together and build a support group around the young women. The workshops are structured around one hour of skill development as well as one hour of the much needed “me” time that the girls need. Some of the workshops have included yoga, self-defence, dancing, painting and a Masterchef-style cooking class with health and nutrition tips. The workshops also involve a lot of thinking and talking about dreams, ambitions and looking at employment options.
The key to attracting the young mums to the workshops is to provide fun free activities, free transport to the workshop venue, a free lunch and free babysitting so the girls can get that precious time out. From my experience of the dream workshop I can see why the girls keep coming back. It was fun, upbeat and positive. The program also has a fantastic graduation party at the end of each year where the girls are taken out for a long lunch to celebrate their participation in the program.
Bump is only relatively new. It has been running for three years with most of the funding coming from the community development and support expenditure scheme (CDSE) as well as fundraisers such as private screenings of movies. So far, Bump is operating in Dee Why, Hornsby, Blacktown and the St George area. However, I reckon there is a lot of potential for a program such as this to continue to expand. At the workshop, Vicki was keen to hear from youth workers interested in Bump. So, give her a call if you think Bump may work in your community.
In regards to concrete outcomes, it’s really early days in the program’s history to gather these. However, from the workshop I got a sense that Bump is a great positive program for young mums. The mentors provide support to the young mums on their parenting journey and the workshops give the young mums valuable me time that enables them to think about their future, reflect on being a mum and realise their dreams.
More information
Vicki Condon
- Young Love Foundation
- info@younglove.org.au
- 0419 633 881
- www.younglove.org.au