2021-2022: PANDA Annual Impact Report
In 2021-2022 the PANDA team continued working towards our vision of a world where perinatal mental health is understood and valued, and stigma and barriers to seeking help no longer exist.
THIS IS A SNAPSHOT OF HOW WE WORKED TOWARDS OUR VISION DURING 2021-2022.
Around 1 in 5 new mums and 1 in 10 news dads experience perinatal mental health challenges, but barriers to help, support and treatment persist. Despite prevelance, many people experiencing perinatal mental health and wellbeing challenges feel a sense of shame and isolation.
We want people to know how and where they can access support and treatment, for themselves and their loved ones. PANDA plays a critical role in de-stigmatising perinatal mental health and wellbeing challenges and in normalising the complex journey to becoming a parent.
Through the voices of people who have lived experience as well as their family, carers and supporters, PANDA informs governments, planners, providers, employers and the wider community about perinatal mental health challenges.
Supporting communities across Australia
PANDA operates Australia’s only National Helpline specific to perinatal mental health.
Staffed by paid and volunteer practitioners with a blend of peer and clinical backgrounds, we work with people and their supporters who are experiencing mental health challenges during the perinatal period.
Many of our callers (more than 50%) are reaching out for the first time. Up to 63% of callers reported that they called PANDA before speaking to their partners about their struggles.
“I don't believe I would be where I am now without the counselling and advice I received from PANDA. I really can't thank the two counsellors I've spoken to enough. ”
Demand for PANDA's services significantly increased during the pandemic and continues to grow.
In 2021-2022, PANDA delivered 54,477 contacts, supporting over 9,615 unique callers, 404 supporters and carers and 2,912 Health Care providers.
“Reaching out for help is important. It's really hard to do, especially when you are used to being “capable” or “the helper”, but it’s so worth it. ”
PANDA recognises that becoming a parent is a time of profound change in personal identity, family dynamics and relationship to self and others. By providing high-quality therapeutic interventions, PANDA supports callers through this transition in an accessible, timely and client-focused way.
Being a helpline, PANDA is available in the moments people need it most. This is often a brief therapeutic window which could otherwise be lost.
“I used to feel very attached to the belief that I had to do and be it all. It led me to burn out, and not being able to be as present as I wanted to be for my children. I now ask myself, ‘who can help me?’”
PANDA’s stepped-care model delivers support to people experiencing mild to moderate changes to their mental health and wellbeing, as well as people managing severe symptoms, including suicidal ideation, obsessive compulsive symptoms and intrusive thoughts. We also provide support for people with clinically-diagnosed conditions such as psychosis, eating disorders, complex post-traumatic stress, mood and personality disorders.
Suicidal ideation is a significant risk that affects up to 20% of PANDA callers. Suicide is the leading cause of maternal death in Australia. Thoughts of suicide and suicidal behaviours are common in the perinatal period, however the stigma associated limits help-seeking and disclosure. This, coupled with many new mothers' fears that their baby may be removed if they disclose suicidal thoughts, results in many women suffering these feelings in silence.
“I remember feeling so isolated from those who love me, that I started to think my family was better off without me. Nothing I could do would ever be good enough for these incredible people.”
By supporting the full spectrum of experiences, from feelings of fatigue, overwhelm and sadness right through to acute mental health conditions, PANDA plays a critical role in Australia's perinatal mental health service landscape.
“Calling PANDA was the best thing I did to help keep myself well during a time of exhaustion and frustration. Every staff member I interacted with was empathetic, professional and knowledgeable.”
What our callers are experiencing
- 11% are feeling grief and loss in the postnatal period
- 30% are experiencing lowered mood
- 11% are worried about their ability to be a good parent
- 31% reported difficulty adapting to their new role as parents
- 17% are concerned about their baby’s sleep
- 9% are worried about building a positive relationship with their baby
- 13% reported feeling psychologically isolated
- 9% are experiencing intrusive thoughts
- 50% are reaching out for the first time
Leading with lived experience
In its earliest days, PANDA relied on hard working and dedicated volunteers.
Parents who had recovered from perinatal depression ran support groups and provided a 24-hour telephone support service from their homes. 39 years later, PANDA now has 639 volunteers working across five different areas of the organisation.
It’s through the voices of people who have lived expertise, their family, carers and supporters, that we inform governments, planners, service providers, employers and the wider community to understand and support people experiencing perinatal mental health issues.
We celebrate the huge contribution of our volunteers, most of whom have their own lived experience of perinatal mental health challenges.
In 2021, we farewelled one of our longest serving and committed volunteers, Nick Batagol, handing over the PANDA Board Chair role to Ben Lannan.
Volunteer snapshot:
- 198 Community Champions
- 297 Clinical Champions
- Peer Support Volunteers
- 15 Community Educations and Training Volunteers
- 2 Administration Volunteers
- 10 Governance, Board and related committees
Profile: PANDA Peer Support volunteer
Meet Marley
Honestly, every time I log in for a peer support shift, I feel so honoured to be part of this amazing team. It's a real privilege and quite humbling when people open up and tell their story. The work we do at PANDA is so important and each time a caller says "thank you for listening" or that speaking with us has made a big difference in their lives my heart does a little happy dance.
Profile: PANDA Community Education volunteer
Meet Michelle
During community education talks, my aim to create a safe space for parents to share both good and bad experiences they’ve had since starting a family. My proudest achievement is opening up the discussion around mental health and wellbeing and noticing when parents in the group feel safe enough to have an honest discussion and are happy to share their ups and downs. I feel humbled and privileged when people share their inner world with me.
Investing in digital, data and systems
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Cloud-based phone system
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PANDA's new website
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Mental Health Checklist
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Social media
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Projects we're proud of
Dad's, carers and support people
PANDA is working to correct the misconception that the perinatal period is only about mums and bubs.
Current research shows that while 1 in 10 dads experience perinatal anxiety or depression, more than 60% of Australians are unaware that dads can be impacted by perinatal mental health issues.
During this year’s Men’s Health Week 2022 (June 13 -19), PANDA launched a campaign to educate Australians about men’s perinatal mental health and let the community know PANDA is here for dads too.
Importantly, lived experience voices featured prominently in the campaign, with Dave Edwards and Clint Cassar generously sharing their stories about the challenges they faced in the transition to parenthood.
PANDA’s campaign received strong media coverage, with 286 clips featured across national, metro and local news outlets, reaching more than 3 million people.
The campaign also resulted in a spike in dads completing the Mental Health Checklist online, with an increase of 500% from the previous year.
Our partnership with SMS4dads continues to provide valuable support to dads. SMS4dads is a free text service that offers dads messages of support, tips and advice. New dads join online and receive tips and information via text messages asking how a dad is coping. If a dad flags he's not doing so well and doesn't have someone to talk to, a PANDA Helpline counsellor gets in touch to offer him support.
More than 10,000 dads have participated in the SMS4dads service.
“When things were tough the texts made me realise that it wasn't just me experiencing these things.”
We also developed new content for supporters and non-birth parents, including care plans and guides to support loved ones experiencing perinatal mental health issues.
Perinatal Mental Health Week
Our theme for Perinatal Mental Health Week in 2021 was “Breaking Down Barriers”.
Tying in with the National Perinatal Mental Health Week campaign, we aimed to raise awareness of the barriers that exist when reaching out for help.
The campaign exceeded our expectations achieving 735 media mentions across the week, featuring the powerful stories of 14 PANDA Community Champions. We acknowledge and thank these strong mums and dads for allowing us to share their stories to raise awareness and encourage conversations about perinatal mental health.
Awards and awareness
PANDA is proud to be acknowledged for our work delivering key mental health services.
2021-2022 awards and acknowledgements include:
- Mental Health Foundation Australia, Victorian Mental Health Organisation of the Year.
- Suicide Prevention LiFE Award: Victorian award and National award.
- Digital Communications Lead Serena Ashmore was acknowledged as a Mental Health Hero by the National Mental Health Commission.
We also marked some key events and initiatives including:
- Promoted content for Drop the Jargon Day, which encourage health care providers to use accessible language when communicating about health.
- Contributed to the Mindframe Guidelines for image use in relation to alcohol and other drugs, and mental health.
- Worked closely with Jean Hailes to celebrate Women’s Health Week, releasing a podcast episode featuring our CEO Julie Borninkhof.
- Signed on to a consortium of organisations requesting a federal National Suicide Prevention Act.
- Presented at the West Australian 2022 Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Symposium.
- Celebrated National Volunteer Week, acknowledging the work of our volunteers across Australia. During the week we launched PANDA's first Volunteer Impact Report.
- Marked Close the Gap day and Reconciliation week, advocating to improve First Nations peoples’ health equality and outcomes
- Partnered with Orygen to launch a policy paper advocating for better support and person-centred care for young parents.
- Attended 12 Pregnancy, Baby and Children Expos speaking to thousands of expecting and new parents through our “Looking after yourself” talk and providing information on PANDA and our partners MumMoodBooster, SMS4Dads and DadsGroup. Expos were resourced by PANDA staff and Community Champion volunteers.
- Throughout the year, PANDA provided expert commentary on a range of mental health and parenting topics across radio, TV, print media and podcasts. We were mentioned in more than 500 online and print articles, with about half of these during Perinatal Mental Health week in 2021.
Funding
Where our funding comes from
PANDA has been supported by community and government funding for nearly 40 years, and we couldn’t do what we do without this ongoing commitment.
In 21-22, we were funded by:
Government/Primary Health Networks
- Federal Department of Health
- Victorian Department of Education and Training
- Victorian Department of Families, Fairness and Housing
Service delivery partnerships
- SMS4Dads/University of Newcastle
- PDeC/Parent Infant Research Institute
- Adelaide Primary Health Network
- NSW Ministry of Health
Corporate Partners:
- Baby Bunting
- Priceline Sisterhood Foundation
Fundraising:
- 29 corporate donors
- 445 individual donor
