OCEAN- Offering Compassionate & Emotional Support for those living through birth trauma and loss
The OCEAN is a new maternal mental health service, run by East London NHS Foundation Trust, available for people living in City & Hackney, Newham and Tower Hamlets. Offering compassionate and emotional support for those living through birth trauma and loss, it is designed for people who are experiencing moderate to severe psychological distress. The OCEAN team is led by psychologists working with midwives and is separate to the perinatal mental health teams.
Read more about what the service offers, details of the therapeutic programme, how people can be referred and contact details.
Eligibility
Inclusion
OCEAN is a service for people who are experiencing moderate to severe psychological distress that meets the criteria of a secondary mental health service, for the following reasons (please note mild-moderate presentations should still be seen in IAPT).
- Loss including miscarriage, medical termination, neonatal death or stillbirth;
- Traumatic birth experience;
- Traumatic perinatal experience. This may include assisted pregnancy or IVF issues:
- Because of a perinatal experience owing to their identification as LGBTQ+
- Owing to a significant fear or phobia related specifically to pregnancy and childbirth, for example fear of giving birth, undergoing examinations;
- Owing to parent-infant separation taking place during the first year after birth due to children’s social care involvement
How to refer
Who can refer: Self-referral available
People can be referred by emailing the referral form to elft.eastlondonocean@nhs.net , or calling Ocean on 020 3222 8047 . Service users can self-refer the same way. We are working towards having an online portal to make self-referring easier. Service users and professionals should be aware that we are only available 9-5, Monday to Friday and we are not able to offer crisis work. If someone is in a crisis they should access support from their local crisis service.