Our Story

Founded in 2013, Release has supported almost 1,500 women in Sussex. Over the last decade, we have developed a skilled and experienced therapy team, who offer a range of services to help women address the issues life throws at them. Everything we do is created and led by qualified Counsellors, and we have become best known for our Therapeutic Groups and Wellbeing Days for mums. However, we also offer 1:1 counselling, and ‘Circle of Security’ parenting groups. 

Over the years we have developed a specialism in maternal mental health, and we are passionate about supporting mothers and their babies during the perinatal period; helping everyone to get the best start. We began running our MummyShock (now Mother Nurture) support groups for new mums in Brighton & Hove in 2014 as a partnership between founders Rebecca Mitchell and Ellen Baldwin. Rebecca originated the concept and idea of Mummyshock, which Ellen brought to life with the development and delivery of the first Mummyshock course in Brighton. Since then, Mummyshock groups in Sussex have supported over 600 women and their babies with the transition to motherhood.

In 2023 we renamed our 10-week group for new mums ‘Mother Nurture,’ to better reflect the range of experiences of women attending our groups. When we surveyed mums who had attended our groups, “nurture” was amongst the most common words used to describe their experiences. In addition, after feedback around a lack of support for mums with multiple children, we then rolled out our Second Nature therapeutic groups in 2022, to help mothers navigate the different challenges of being a parent to siblings.