Postpartum Progress is launching its official community volunteer program, called the Warrior Mom™ Ambassadors. The Ambassadors are women who have survived perinatal mood and anxiety disorders who want to work with us to build a network that supports meaningful change – a core group that wants to do more in their cities and towns than they are already doing to provide peer support and spread the word about maternal mental health.
A Warrior Mom ambassador will apply by filling out an application and signing an official volunteer agreement. If selected, she will become a key lead in her community representing Postpartum Progress in peer outreach and awareness. There can be more than one ambassador in a community by the way, and together you will make up a loosely organized Postpartum Progress “embassy.” Our only requirement is that you must be willing to work with others. Remember the Postpartum Progress tagline: together, stronger.
A Warrior Mom Ambassador is a mom who wants to support other moms in her community. She wants to raise awareness of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and reduce stigma. She is willing to share her own story publicly. She is willing to learn the facts about perinatal mood and anxiety disorders so that she can share that evidence-based knowledge with others. She is willing to participate in free training opportunities provided by Postpartum Progress to be the best peer supporter she can be. She has been looking for a way to become more officially involved with Postpartum Progress.
If you are already volunteering in a large capacity for another organization becoming a Warrior Mom Ambassador is not for you — at least not at this time. This is because we want to make SURE we do not take your valuable efforts and time away from other nonprofits doing good work in the maternal mental health space. In the end all these things help moms and that’s good.
How much time will it take to be a Warrior Mom Ambassador? To be honest, we’re not sure. This is a new program. But we feel very strongly about working closely with our ambassadors to learn what works and what doesn’t so we can make this the best volunteer program it can be.
What do we expect of you? That you don’t sign up to be an Ambassador in name only. We can see the difference, I promise you, between Warrior Moms who really put in some time and effort on the projects we put out there and the ones who don’t. That’s perfectly fine because not every volunteer can do as much. We’ll still have lots of volunteers who don’t want to be Ambassadors – they might just want to help share our messages via social media, or join a Climb, or work on a single project – and those moms will remain important to us. An Ambassador is just a higher level of volunteer in a smaller group who will have more opportunities to lead in her community and will have more access to our resources. If you become an Ambassador and end up not being able to put in the time — life happens, right? — then we’ll just ask you to go back to being a regular volunteer. Which is still great. No harm, no foul. And you can always apply to be an Ambassador again when you have more time.
We’ll also expect that you’ll be willing to conduct outreach to ALL moms and not just moms of your style, neighborhood, religion, lifestyle, ethnicity, etc. Being an Ambassador is not for you if you aren’t willing to get outside your comfort zone to speak to and support moms who may not look like you or have your same cultural beliefs. We’ll provide you with lots of support on this so you don’t feel like you’re going it alone. We just want to make sure Postpartum Progress is for all moms.
What can you expect from us? That we will do everything we can to support you. As you know we believe in servant leadership and providing peers with the tools they need to help others. We promise that will continue. We will continue to provide you our materials freely for distribution and any training opportunities we provide will be free to you as well.
What are the benefits of becoming a Warrior Mom Ambassador?
- First dibs on Warrior Mom Conference tickets before they go on sale to the public
- A 20% discount code for Warrior Mom merchandise
- The opportunity to lead scientific research efforts in your area (as we are able to conduct through funding and partnerships) by helping us enroll local participants for that research
- Local media interview opportunities if we are contacted by media in your area
- Peer support and other types of peer-related training (as we are able to provide it through funding and partnerships)
- Whatever other cool stuff we come up with … and you know we will!
What if I don’t want to be an Ambassador but would like to work on one project, for instance being a Climb Out of the Darkness team leader in your town? NOT A PROBLEM. Keep doing what you do girl! We love you!!
What are your selection criteria? We want to know why you’d like to do this and what your goals are and whether they match our organizational mission. We want to know if you have the time and wherewithal to get out there and raise awareness and support our efforts. And, to be honest, if we already have a relationship with you in some capacity because you have been a Climb leader or have attended the Warrior Mom conference or volunteered for us in some other capacity, that will make a big difference. So if you’re thinking you’d like to become an Ambassador next year or the year after, we’d suggest getting involved with us in some capacity and seeing what we’re about. We’d love to get to know you!
If I become an official Postpartum Progress Warrior Mom Ambassador can I still collaborate with other local organizations? Of course!! Absolutely!! Without question!!
If I become an official Postpartum Progress Warrior Mom Ambassador will I have to participate in every single Postpartum Progress project and program? No. There will be some things we’ll ask everyone to do and some things that will be optional. For example, we expect every ambassador to participate in her local Climb Out of the Darkness climb, but we don’t expect nor would we require every ambassador to be a Climb team leader (though we know many who will apply already are team leaders).
Is there a deadline to apply? No. This is an ongoing, rolling application process. We’ll be adding new volunteers all the time. So whenever you’re ready, let us know!
