Supporting women separated from their children

Match Mothers is a charity set up to support mothers who have been separated or lost contact with their children for a variety of reasons.  My particular focus and expertise with this charity is in Parental Alienation which is still today an unrecognised phenomenon.

I have gone through this experience myself and I feel that I can draw from my own ghastly experience and put it to good use to help others who are going through the same thing.   My role as a volunteer is to take the phone lines on specific days and also to counsel mothers who have lost contact with their children.  The mothers who call are desperate wanting signposts as to where they can go for practical help and where to get legal support to fight their impending case.

Often the phone calls are from mothers whose cases are pretty hopeless, they are suffering and need reassurance that they will see their children again. Unfortunately, court orders are often flouted in family courts and penalties are not enforced for parents who do not abide by the court orders regarding custody and visitation rights.  If everything was in order there would be no need for a charity such Match Mothers.

To be a volunteer you have to have the time and genuine devotion to helping others through their plight. Often the mothers we talk to are struggling to make ends meet let alone having to pay legal costs. I get a great deal of satisfaction after having spoken to a mother who is in a desperate state and I feel that afterwards I have given them encouragement and changed their lives in some small way. What could be a better feeling than that – having given someone hope and strength to carry on?

I think that is a good summation of volunteering; that you are giving something back to humanity. You cannot put a price on helping other people and the positive effect you can have one somebody’s life.

I think Volunteers’ Week is a great idea as it can encourage other people to give their time to whatever cause they believe in. I think there must be many people like myself who have time on their hands and are perhaps not qualified and/or their children have grown up and they are thinking what can I do now?

If you have a feeling of a certain ‘something missing’ or emptiness in your life try volunteering in whatever field interests you. You don’t necessarily need to be at a certain stage in life and the rewards are huge.