[ad_1]
TThe president of the country's leading charity for new parents has resigned, saying his goal now is to move from badfeeding and maternity support to mental health issues.
Seána Talbot says he believes the National Childbirth Trust (NCT) is going in the wrong direction.
She accused the charity of no longer putting the spotlight on postnatal mental health.
In her resignation letter, Ms. Talbot, Chair of the Board of Directors since 2017 and a member of the Board of Directors since 2009, stated that the NCT was "no longer a leading charity. ".
"Others have taken our place or, worse yet, there is a silence where women's voices should be," she said. Ms Talbot also claimed that there was "a deep lack of trust" within the organization and a "culture of fear".
She said, "I have now concluded that NCT's management and strategy leaders are committed to leading the charity in a direction I can not support."
In 2013, Kirstie Allsopp, the presenter, described the NCT, which has more than 320 branches in the country and 5,000 local volunteers, as "a very politicized, dogmatic and, in my experience, scary organization".
Ms. Talbot was elected president after an argument in which she claims to have been forced to resign from her position as a director in 2016, following the death of a baby in a child's bed approved by the NCT despite a conclusive investigation that it was not to blame.
She baderted that her complaints of "intimidation and coercion" that she suffered at that time have never been investigated and that further examination by senior executives had been wrong to conclude that there was no bullying in the charity.
It is also understood that 38 of the NCT practitioners have written to the charity to express their concerns. Over the last five years, the charity's annual income has dropped from 17.6 to 15.6 million pounds, although it has had a surplus of 1.6 million pounds.
But the NCT fought back, claiming that he had not abandoned his main goal, but that it was right to also focus on mental well-being.
Jessica Figueras, Chair of the Board of Directors, said, "We know we can do more to support parents after birth."
The organization rejected Ms. Talbot's claims that she operated in a climate of fear and intimidation.
Ms. Figueras said, "We want everyone to be treated with dignity, courtesy and respect and we will not tolerate any form of intimidation or harbadment. We are not complacent and we treat any allegation of intimidation with the utmost seriousness. "
She added: "In June 2018, Seána officially filed a complaint with the board of directors regarding a decision made in December 2016 to ask him to resign.
"The trustees took this complaint very seriously and responded by taking a number of steps, including appointing a QC … and following up on the advice of the QC to work with a mediator to discuss the process. This work was in progress in the week that Seána resigned. "
[ad_2]
Source link
