Mental Health Team take on Great North Swim for APP
On June 14th, a team of healthcare professionals from the South West Yorkshire Community Perinatal Mental Health Team will heading to the Lake District to take part in the Great North Swim to help raise funds and awareness for APP.
Attempting the one mile swim in the UK's biggest open water swimming event will be Claire, Louise, Mary, Roban and Laura - all of whom work together in the perinatal mental health team.Claire explains more about how they got started and why they chose to take on this amazing challenge for APP.
'We started going out swimming once a month and now meet two - three times a week. It really has had a fantastic impact on our lives. It is so freeing being out in the water. We chat, put the world to rights, laugh and off load with each other, or swim bits on our own to just get some real time for ourselves in our busy lives.
It’s been really nice recently swimming (literally) alongside baby ducklings, swans and geese. It’s feels really special and the warm weather is definitely making it a pleasure to be out in the water.
Although we are not distance swimmers, we have all now swum a mile in the open water so this has given us a real confidence boost for the actual swim.
We are blown away by the generosity of people who have donated to your charity. We work with families affected by this illness and they often tell us no one had ever told them this was an illness that could affect them after having a baby, so we wanted to help raise awareness so women and birthing people and families know what the illness is and how to access support if they feel they are at risk or are experiencing symptoms.
We hope the number of donations reflects we have managed to spread the message and raise funds so you can continue all the work APP does.'
A huge thank you to all the team from all of us at APP - we can't wait to hear how you get on, fingers crossed for nice weather on the day!