About Us | You Me Mind

You Me Mind is a collective of professionals supporting women and mothers through birth trauma. Our team is made up of people who have a lived experience of birth trauma and trained professionals, such as midwives and mental health support workers, motherhood studies practitioners, and matrescence researchers. We are committed to making a difference in the lives of the people we support.

Our Founder

Maxine Stevens

I went through a difficult and traumatic birth with my son, who is now 12, at the time there was very little support. In the years that followed my mental health declined, and the trauma took hold. Birth trauma didn’t seem to be talked about, so I suffered in silence. After years of struggling, it became too much and one professional finally took notice that I needed help. When that was recognised there still wasn’t much help and long waiting lists, I did get the help in the end, but it meant the recovery was much slower. After going through this experience, I really started to question if this was other women’s experience? Or surely this couldn’t be right, that you could go through something so traumatic and not get offered any help? For nobody to notice? It was this experience that made want to help other women.

Before my son was born, I worked for 15 years in social service and education and since then my birth experience and healing journey lead me to retain as a counsellor and psychotherapist.

Setting up this charity has been a long journey of late nights, sometimes full of doubt whether I can do it, but always with the drive to want to help others. And now it’s coming to fruition. Sometimes all we need it to be heard, to be seen, not fixed, just understood in a shared experience. I have big aims but ultimately if I make a difference to only one woman that will be enough because every woman is important.

Our Trustees

Kim O'Brien

Trustee / Mental Health Nurse

Welcoming a child into the world can provoke many changes in the family life. This transition can often lead to some women struggling with their feelings that are associated with anxiety and low mood. Women can feel overwhelmed, sad, lonely and frustrated at a time where they have been led to believe by society that they should feel happy and euphoric. In addition to this, there may be lasting effects of birth trauma, which can become very overwhelming very fast. Unfortunately, women and their families often go without the right support either, because of the stigma of reaching out for help or because they may not fit the strict criteria attached to services that have limited resources. Since experiencing birth trauma myself almost 8 years ago with my son, I have for the most part been left in a traumatised state and it has only been in the past few years that I have managed to move more into a state of recovery. So I know only too well how the fairy-tale we get sold as young girls and women can often read like a horror story without the right support in place. In my professional life I have worked in many areas of the care sector, but my lived experiences of mental health conditions and trauma made me want to specialise in supporting others on their mental health and wellbeing journey. Therefore, I became a Mental Health Nurse. More recently I reconnected with Maxine Stevens (founder) and we discovered we were on the same path, in that we wanted to provide a service and a comfort zone to mums and their families who are experiencing feelings of sadness, panic, loneliness, frustration, irritation or anger as result of birth trauma. As well as important ‘me’ time so they can have the space they need to focus on themselves and their emotional needs. Eventually we would like this provision to provide all of this for other mums and families that are experiencing other varying mental health struggles in the perinatal period too. I really hope that after reading this, women and their families draw some comfort on the fact that there are people out there that care and we want to walk alongside you in your individual journey to recovery.

Gabrielle Davis

Trustee / Trauma informed Teacher

I am a mum of 2 boys and a primary school teacher with 20 years experience and a Forest school Practitioner. I have a passion to approach teaching with trauma informed and relational practice sitting at the heart of the interactions with the children in my care. Over the years, I have delivered nurture groups to children within school and forest settings; offering them a space to breathe out, connect with themselves and use nature as a tool for healing. Being part of this charity feels like an extremely important part of my journey. My own transition into motherhood has not been without its trauma and the importance of making support available to mums is absolutely crucial. The vision for You Me Mind will offer a much needed space and place of knowledge sharing. I see the impact of intergenerational trauma everyday in my daily work and being part of a charity supporting the healing of trauma will have such a huge impact on not only the mothers attending but the children in their care.

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Kamya O'Keeffe

Trustee / Motherhood Studies Practitioner

Kamya is a women’s rites of passage guide and mentor. She tends the thresholds of life's transitions by creating handmade transformative rites of passages for girls, women, mothers, and elders that acknowledge and celebrate the significant cycles and stages of our lives. Transitions from adolescence to healthy young adulthood, the journey and metamorphosis of matrescence, and the crossing into elderhood. Each rite of passage is a quest to discover our own calling, a listening to our own ways of knowing, remembering who we are, and understanding of the gifts we bring to the world, and to the unfolding vision of our lives. Kamya is trained as a Motherhood Studies practitioner, Trauma Informed Space holder and certified Youth Mental Health First Aider and Rites of Passage Mentor. She is the founder of The Thresholds and Transitions Trust,- a women’s collaborative based on intersectional feminist, decolonizing, animist and earth honouring values.

Natalie Adams

Trustee / Midwife

I was delighted to be invited to support such a wonderful charity. You Me Mind, aims to provide and support a safe space that allows families to talk, learn and share their story. Something that is so very natural and welcomed within any parent’s journey. My personal story and time within midwifery has allowed me to listen, help and support birthing people to unpick and try to understand, allowing them to find ways to manage and begin to move forward. As a mother, a professional and an advocate for clinical excellence, I hope that the ethos of You Me Mind will encourage and support openness, kindness and compassion, allowing families to collectively share in a place of psychological safety.

Our Team

Vicky Glover

I’m a professional specialising in mental health and bereavement and have in recent years completed a midwifery degree, and also worked in education, domestic and sexual violence support and also have collaborated with NHS services to support people with various mental health conditions. Supporting women’s mental health postnatally is something I feel really passionate about, having previously been a sufferer of post natal depression myself. I feel this lived experience enables me to

empathise with women from all walks of life. I want to destigmatise talking about postnatal depression. It’s ok to admit you are struggling, because there is help out there.

Maxine Stevens

I am an counsellor and trainee psychotherapist with lived experience of birth trauma and mental health struggles and I have felt the benefit of seeking help and support and I carry these experiences into the work I do.

I have worked for 15 years in schools, education and social care settings, including family mediation, child protection and disability

inclusion. After many years in this work, building supportive relationships was the common thread I was most drawn, which ultimately led me into training as a therapist and to set up this charity.

I work with adults and young people and am experienced in issues such as trauma, depression and anxiety, and PTSD, relationship issues, domestic violence and more. I have a particular interest in birth trauma and hope that by facilitating the birth hubs I will be able to help and support women through a difficult time.

If you are a professional who would like to offer your expertise please contact us here.

Inclusion Statement

We acknowledge that the people who set up and run this charity are predominantly white, cis-het women and therefore will take on the responsibility of creating a container and community based on inclusion, equity and justice that everyone can feel welcome in.

We use the term 'mother' to include all birthing people that may have been affected by birth trauma and offer support to anyone who may need it, however you identify. Diversity, equity and inclusivity are important for us in order to create sacred spaces for women, mothers and birthing people.

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