Day 4 of Black Maternal Health Awareness Week we are focusing on Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG), a severe form of pregnancy sickness. #BMHAW24 #FiveXMore

As a fairly new La Leche League leader, Sally Etheridge (Mammas Founder) started taking Helpline calls from many new mums around Leicester. Soon, mothers passed on the Helpline number to others who needed support and it grew from here!

Day 3 of the Black maternal health awareness week and we are in parliament today! There will be a Black Maternal Health All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) meeting speaking about the various topics coming out from our awareness week. Stay tuned for more #BMHAW24 #FiveXMore

It’s Black maternal health week! Despite progress, Black women are still four times more likely to die in pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period in the UK (MBRRACE 2023) Each day has a different theme all under the overarching goal of 'Advancing Black Maternal Health'

Join Nasreen & the team for evidence based topics & one to one breastfeeding support in a warm friendly environment. No need to book just turn up

Wonderful learning with @dr_sramlouis on Froebelian Finger Songs - strong interaction with the audience here at @AFNCCF #NCFH national conference huge 🙏🏾

Interested/knowledgable in creative methods? A new journal is being launched: International Journal of Creative Research methods. Working with the fantastic @DrHelenKara @sumingkhoo @HarrietShortt and I; apply to be on the editorial board. please share! helenkara.com/writing/intern…

´Fucketyfucketyfuckfuckfuck´ by Annie Taylor from PEG - the Profanity Embroidery Group, Whitstable, UK, a group formed by women for stitching and swearing #WomensArt #septtextilelove

France steps up its attempts to police the clothing choices of Muslim girls and women by banning #abayas. Following the Burqa & Burkini ban, Muslim women & girls in France are once again denied the autonomy to decide what is right for *their* bodies. Is France alone in this? 1/5

I felt this in my soul. When I was taken into care, at the age of 1, I was separated from my brothers and moved from Toxteth - a diverse area of Liverpool - to Halewood - a part of Knowsley that was more than 99% white, a place where I was chased, beaten, and taunted for being Black. When I was taken into care, I lost so much more than my family. I lost my culture, my history, and the protection of my community. Like Louise, I tried to shrink and hide myself, starting with my hair. I relaxed my hair from the age of 9 because I was tired of people touching it and making fun of it. It took years for me to learn to embrace who I was, to learn about my history, culture, and identity - which is probably why I'm so unwavering about those things now - and I was well into my 20s before I threw the relaxer away! As an adult, I have chosen to research the educational journeys of care experienced young people for my PhD. While it's great to see the increasing academic interest in the outcomes for care experienced people - outcomes like the care to prison and homelessness pipeline that had, at one time seemed inevitable - it's clear that a lot more research is needed on the intersections of care and race. To be Black and in care is to experience a whole different level of compound discrimination. To Louise, I say this ⬇️ I don't know you, but I see you, and i see what you've been up against. I spent most of my childhood in care, my birth mum died at 14, and I crashed out of school after failing most of my GCSE's at 16. I was homeless a few months later and went down a dark path for a while. By 19, I had a baby boy, and everyone told me I was nothing and that I was going nowhere fast. But my baby boy was the making of me. I fought for him, dreamed for him and climbed for him. I worked 2 jobs, studied at night school, and got apprenticeships and secondments by day. I gained promotions at work and got the qualifications that allowed me to go to university. Over the past 6 years I have gained a first class degree, masters with distinction, I've had my writing published by Bloomsbury, had my work performed on stage and given keynotes speeches to sold out events up and down the country. I'm a lecturer and Halewood's first Black Woman Town Councillor. But none of that makes me as proud as yesterday did. Yesterday, the boy I hoped to raise higher than me got his GCSE results. He passed his GCSE's and is going to study at his first choice sixth form. He is the first person in my family to do this, and to say I am proud would be an understatement. I recently did a podcast about some of my experience in care. The host asked me what I would go back to say to my 16 year old self and I was, momentarily, unable to speak. 16 year old me had no voice. She was a broken shell of a person who would, in a few months' time, try to take her own future away. She had no idea what she was capable of or what she would go on to achieve. I wish I could go back and show her the 16 year old King she raised and tell her exactly what she was capable of. To you Louise, I say this. You are a force to be reckoned with. You are raising a Queen and changing the world. Your lived experience will give you the strength and empathy to achieve anything. You are capable of moving mountains and I believe that you will. Louise, you have got this 👑 @Become1992

Before anything can be fixed we have to recognise what is broken… Right now we live in a world where democracies willingly empower malignant, belligerent narcissists to the extent that they could single-handedly blow us all up on a whim, where our response to an endangered planet is to endanger it more, where wanting education and healthcare for all is stigmatised as communism and equal compassion for all is denounced as “woke”, where the world’s riches are willingly handed to an irresponsible and arrogant few while many starve through a system we are taught never to question, where the accident of where we are born is given as a justification for malicious inhumanity towards others, where unregulated artificial intelligence threatens to make humanity redundant within a generation… It goes on… How do we change it? Start with free education and healthcare for all. Internationally… People who make great discoveries for humanity have risen from multiple cultures and some have only been kept alive through 24 hour medical help. Then teach children the value of cooperation, collective responsibility and mutual care, regardless of appearance, background, gender, beliefs or ethnicity. Those are mere distractions emphasised to us everyday in the interests and at the convenience of those in power to keep us divided. Democracy is no answer in itself to the state of our world. It has to be accompanied by collective responsibility and that can only arise from educated and informed consensus unimpeded by prejudice or malicious misinformation. We need real change. But to do so we need to understand what is not working and why.

📣 We’re thrilled to announce our UK and International #OpenAwards! Offering £600,000 to disabled artists to create extraordinary work on a national and international level. Read the full announcement on our website and find out how to apply: bit.ly/3KhQoh1

RIP Paulette it has been 3 years today that you joined the ancestors

This woman, who is being arrested for fare evasion, had paid her bus fare. Met police in the thread below suggesting it “looks concerning” but there’s a wider context appears to be doubling down on their part, when an apology would be the sensible option.

Last week the BBC apologised after their news presenter asked a former Israeli PM if Israeli forces were happy to kill children. This week:

This is a really powerful and useful document. Available free online and the website has some incredibly useful resources. Check it out!

Britain’s shorter children reveal a grim story about austerity, but its scars run far deeper | Michael Marmot theguardian.com/commentisfre…

How wages have faired. MPs: Pay ⬆️ 22% in real terms since 2010 Bankers: Bonuses ⬆️ 101% in cash terms since 2008 CEOs: Pay ⬆️ 23% in 2022 alone Teachers: Pay 🔻 24% since 2010 Nurses: Pay 🔻 20% since 2010 Whose wages are causing the inflation?

London branch event - Developing children’s creative imaginings & Branch AGM. Join this in-person Centenary celebration on 28th June, from 5.30pm (AGM) with a 6pm book launch. Find out more and book your place via: ow.ly/XCkg50OAxNS