The Green Parent

By The Green Parent

23rd March 2022

Diaries have power. Midwife and artist Laura Godfrey-Isaacs has harnessed the format to near-magical effect, forming Maternal Journal, an award-winning movement that encourages diary-keeping and creativity.

The Green Parent

By The Green Parent

23rd March 2022

The Green Parent

By The Green Parent

23rd March 2022

Alongside communications specialist, Samantha McGowan, in four years she has set up a national network of workshops where pregnant people and parents make very personal work connected to family, pregnancy and birth. We spoke to Laura about the rapidly expanding movement, and how keeping a diary can help build communities and support parents’ mental health

“I am a visual artist, and decided to train to be a midwife in 2013. My creative work examines the female body and its representations and craft and domesticity, so it seemed like a logical progression.

I’ve always been interested in the history of journals; it’s a particularly female history. In the past, diaries were one of the only acceptable ways for women to write and express personal, social and political opinions. Those writers who kept diaries in the 18th and 19th centuries would now be bloggers, on social media or using Instagram stories. So there’s a strong history to the form, but it’s also contemporary.

I started Maternal Journal in 2017 with a grant from the Institute of Psychiatry, via their Arts in Mind project, where artists work with academics. The idea for the workshop structure and formats came from that period, and we got support from The Arts Council to create a website. People can journal using the resources on the site or use our toolkit to set up and run Maternal Journal groups themselves.

Keeping a journal is a very convenient way of doing something creative. It’s informal, a way of documenting what’s going on in your life or making art that’s low pressure; you’re not expected to make something polished or finished. If you want you can close it and never show anyone, not even your children or partner. Alternatively, it might be public; people share their work on social media using our hashtag.

“It’s a way of documenting what’s going on in your life or making art that’s low pressure; you’re not expected to make something polished or finished”

We understand that new mothers are often time poor, so lots of our guides reflect that. We’ve created prompts so that people don’t have to look at a blank sheet of paper and tips for how to find regular times or little slots in the day to journal. We’re trying to support people with lots of resources and tips with a full realisation that often they have little time or mental space.

Workshops and groups are an important part of the network. They consist of six to twenty women or parents that meet regularly over five to ten weeks for a couple of hours at a time. They might gather in a community centre, an arts space or a children’s centre. The workshops start with people sharing what they might have created that week •

in their journal, as we’re trying to support their independent journaling. Then the group leader will run an exercise for an hour or so using one of our guides; perhaps the group will write poems, do free writing, or they might work on a cartoon. Collages are a really popular form because there’s something already there to work with; one of our most popular guides is called Cut and Paste Poetry.

The guides are very simple to follow, but help people to open things up and unlock experiences. Although everyone’s followed the same exercise, each person ends up with something very individual and unique. At the end of the workshop, everyone shares their work and talks about what they’ve done. That’s a very important part, and gives the opportunity for everyone to get empathy and support from others in the group. If there is time and the venue has the facilities, we suggest that after the group everyone stays on and maybe shares a meal together; a simple lunch or a sandwich. This brings a social aspect to the event, people chat and get to know each other.

We are keen to support people in developing their own journalling practice to take forward into their lives. There’s been a lot of research into creative activity being good for your mental health and well-being, whether that’s singing, drawing, writing or dancing. Journalling builds confidence; it’s a way of expressing how you’re feeling, and has a social aspect that helps establish social networks too. Our informal feedback is overwhelmingly positive, people tell us that it’s helped their mental health and wellbeing. The project started as a way to give pregnant women with mild-to-moderate mental health problems strategies to use during pregnancy and into postnatal life, but our engagement is now a lot broader. We’ve got grandmothers running groups and parents with older children creating work, which is great. Any period on your journey as a parent is going to have its challenges, so journaling can be useful at any age.

During the last, challenging year, many of our projects and groups went online. Although initially it felt like an awful thing that would change group dynamics, it’s seen a huge expansion of groups. Going digital enabled many more people to take part; they didn’t need to travel, to organise childcare – of course we’re very open to people with children and interruptions – so hopefully we’ll carry on with quite a lot online. Of course, face-to-face groups have enormous positives so we will keep those going too. It’s easy to set up a group yourself; our guides are all online. All you need to do is drop me an email and I’ll take you through the process.

At the moment, we are working on a book, Maternal Journal: A Creative Guide to Journaling through Pregnancy, Birth and Beyond that will come out later this year, it takes in the history of journalling, a manual and will compile our existing guides with some newly commissioned writing.”

RESOURCES Join in at maternaljournal.org

HOW TO GET STARTED WITH YOUR PARENTING JOURNAL

  • Keep your journal close at hand and use it when you find there is a lull in the day or if the opportunity comes up like night time feeds, naps or riding the bus.
  • Fill a small pouch or bag with pens, paints, pencils, stickers etc and carry it with you.
  • Look around you throughout the day (and night) and try to note down whatever moves you — snippets of conversation, images or inspiring quotes.
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