Our MAMS Network includes diverse members from all four faculties, professional support services and students seeking pregnancy and parenting support. With a growing membership, the network welcomes new mothers from across the University at any stage of motherhood, offering peer support and community.

Fire Kovarovic from our Department of Anthropology is one of the co-chairs of the network. Dialogue spoke to Fire to find out more.

Why was the network started?

The network was founded about ten years ago by a wonderful group of women who had children at roughly the same time. They talked about how it could be very difficult to make sense of becoming and being a working mother at the University and decided to create a group that would welcome mums to provide support, friendship and advice on everything from the differences between baby sling types to where to locate our maternity leave policy to holiday clubs for kids. The network made space for Durham mums to support other Durham mums, which was missing back then. And working mums, particularly new working mums, need to know that somebody understands them, that they aren’t alone, and that there are people working to make sure they are heard and supported throughout their entire motherhood journey. The network started as quite a grassroots group, and it remains this way - although it has grown in reputation.

What are the aims of the network?

The aims of the network are to support, acknowledge and advocate for mothers who work at Durham. But the network is here for members and what we do in any given year is determined by members. There are years when people reach out with suggestions for events or invited workshop leaders and other times when we can pick up on a vibe, as it were, and devote our energy to addressing things that are concerning the membership. So, the network dictates the aims at any given point but broadly speaking we are here to be friendly, fun, supportive - and to foster courage in the face of the expectations of modern motherhood.

Who can join the network?

Any mum who works at the University in any area of the institution, whether full-time or part-time, or any PhD student mum can join MAMS. Anyone who is a mother, no matter how she came to be one, is encouraged to join and I am hoping that more adoptive mothers, stepmothers and grandmothers find their way to the network so we can all learn from the diversity of experiences represented in such a tiny little word: mum! We do focus a lot of attention on the workplace environment, which is why we haven’t explicitly opened the network to taught postgraduates or undergraduates. But we do sometimes receive requests for advice or support from students and we always try to help, if appropriate.

What’s happened at the network so far?

A better question to ask is what hasn’t happened at the network?! We’ve held formal and informal meetings and workshops, brought in guest speakers, worked to improve many policies and programmes that impact on mothers at the University, conducted a research project that informed post-Covid life for mums working in HE in the UK, collected, shared and amplified the experiences of motherhood, donated and traded baby and children’s items, laughed and cried… and eaten quite a lot of baked goods.

MAMS has made something of a name for itself in the staff network space, and as a co-chair I was invited to take part in a research project about parents and carers networks in UK HE that will soon launch a toolkit for staff networks.

MAMS is viewed as a network that has had impact and reach. We don’t have many resources at our fingertips compared to other staff networks in HE, so we have run on the energy and compassion and willpower of our organisation team members over the years. Our most obvious legacy as mums is of course our children, but in some small way, our legacy is also the trail forged by MAMS – all of us have made the network strong and each other stronger.

Do you have regular meetings?

We usually plan to meet at least twice a term, but find that time is so short that we may offer only one in person meet-up. But in addition to this we might have virtual gatherings or encourage attendance at events with other staff networks or at Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) related events at the University of which we are supportive.

But our actual meetings are such a small part of what we do – most of our activity is less “visible” and driven by supporting individuals or small groups of members who reach out, or feeding into University consultations and other projects that impact our membership, or contribute to research on mothering, particularly in higher education.

We wish there were more opportunities for meet-ups, but it can be hard to find the time to organise them or a time that suits everyone.

Find out more

• Find out more about the MAMs network over on SharePoint
• View the video below to find out more about our MAMs network and how you can join