PANDA

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Peer support at the Post and Antenatal Depression Association

PANDA provides information, counselling, referral and support to families living with perinatal depression (antenatal and postnatal). PANDA provides peer-to-peer support on an individual basis, on the National Perinatal Depression Helpline, via email and home visits. PANDA also provides assistance to a network of peer support groups run by health professionals and self-help facilitators across Victoria.

PANDA’s Helpline is staffed by a mixture of paid professional counsellors and volunteers, many of whom have experienced perinatal depression. Volunteers are well supported and integrated in the organisation: through the recruitment process, training and strong supervision model. Qualified senior volunteers can go on to become paid staff. The employment of professional counsellors has developed due to increasing levels of suicidality and risk to mothers and infants.

Volunteers have key input into organisational direction and planning. Constitutionally, only women and men with lived experience of perinatal depression or people who have provided care for a woman or man with periniatal depression can be full members of PANDA with voting rights. The lived experience of families living with perinatal depression informs all aspects of PANDA’s work.