Activities for multicultural mothers, multilingual mothers and mothers of diverse families

Terrible Mothers activities are for all mothers, regardless of language, cultural background or family type.

We realised that our peer groups and events were not reaching all mothers and we started to develop our activities, focusing first on mothers from multicultural and multilingual families in 2020-2021. At the beginning of 2022, we expanded our activities to reach more mothers from diverse families.

Peer support groups are organised in different languages and targeted at mothers from diverse families. Terrible Mothers groups have been organised for single mothers, mothers of blended families and mothers of teenagers with Down’s syndrome. Groups are also held in different languages, including English, Arabic, Somali and Spanish. For mothers of teenagers, there are Terrible mothers workshops in Finnish, English and plain language (Easy Finnish), as well as Evenings for Mothers of teenagers with expert lectures on various topics held online.

In addition to learning about the Terrible Mothers model, our peer support group leader training looks at how to address diversity in a peer group. We will train mothers of diverse families as group leaders and develop the Terrible Mothers activities for mothers of teenagers in diverse families in collaboration with our partners.

Diversity is an asset and its inclusion in our work increases understanding and the value of encounters among mothers of teenagers. We want to create safe meeting spaces for mothers from diverse families.