Group Programs

The grief, trauma and shame of involuntary childlessness can be disenfranchised (Darroux, 2022), which can be an isolating and shaming experience.  We barely exist within cultural spaces and often only as negative stereotypes (Turnbull, 2016; Archetti, 2020).  Social narratives can position us failed women (Letherby, or as a warning to younger women (Day, 2012). 

We can be excluded from social and civic spaces (Turnbull, 2016) and can lose social connections when our friends move into parenting roles.  (Link to blog post- The Social Pruning of parenthood)  We can receive insensitive comments or be shut down when we try to speak about our experiences. 

Sometimes childless women don’t even talk about their experiences to the other women they know who don’t have kids.

We can be pitied for what we lack or judged because we’re not creating bright shining lives.  Social and work spaces can be dominated by parenting anecdotes and social connections fostered organically through parenting pathways. 

When we are shamed and our stories are silenced, we can lack a frame of reference for what we are experiencing and feel like there’s something wrong with us. 

Women often tell us that it might have been a long time since they have felt safe and their experiences validated in groups of women. 

When involuntary childless women come together in safer connecting spaces, it can be a healing balm to share our stories, have them safely and compassionately held, experience validation and finally feel, well, normal. 

Whilst each woman’s story is unique and personal, we can also see the commonalities of our experiences and realise it’s not just about our personal functioning but about the childless experience itself and the culture context in which we exist.

Whilst it can take some time for women to feel they are ready to step into a group process, relief is the overwhelming feeling that women express to us when they finally do.

So many tell us, I wish I had done this years ago, as connecting to the incredible women who finally get it, is priceless.

Group work with the Empty Cradle is unpinned by psychological, social work, counselling, sociological, community development and community education perspectives. In the “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” one of the foundational texts for the critical pedagogy movement, the Brazilian community educator and philosopher Paolo Freire outlined the importance of conscientization. 

Conscientization is critical consciousness or awareness raising within marginalised groups of their shared experience of othering and the structural nature of this.  It is the process where groups of people come together, share their stories, recognise the commonalities of their experiences and can start to see the cultural, social, political, economic and contextual frames that impact their personal experience.

For childless women, this context includes ideologies such as patriarchal motherhood and pronatalism; gender, class and cultural critiques; ageism; individualism and meritocracies; family, social and economic structures; the exercise of political power; lack of skilfulness and awareness, such as grief illiteracy, and cultural annihilation, leading to our absence, stereotyping or silencing in social and cultural spaces.

This context impacts on how we both personally and collectively experience being non-parents, both our support in the transition to permanent involuntary childlessness and our ongoing lives as mature adult women.  This is particularly applicable to our experiences of ageing.

Childless women experience othering through the disenfranchisement and silencing of our experiences, and the ways we are talked about (or invisible) in social, cultural and political narratives.  Coming together, we can identify the commonalities of our concerns and explore pathways of healing, renewal and change. 

It can be hard for us to imagine vibrant, meaningful and connected lives when we lack role models, are absent in cultural spaces and can be vilified in political and other discourses. This is why, for many of childless women, our liberation is achieved in connection with each other.

Once we see the commonalities of our experience, we can see what is ours to own, carry and heal, and what is not.  Further, it enables us to see what cultural action or structural change might be needed to assist in healing, for us to exercise our human rights and to create change toward more connected and inclusive communities.

We can identify the social exclusion, the similarities in the way our experiences are held and responded to, and the comments about us and our lives.  We can also identify commonalities of concerns which can inform social policy advocacy, community education and cultural change initiatives.

This enables childless women to thrive and flourish not just personally, but also as part of our social groups and within connected, loving communities.  This benefits not just childless women but communities as a whole.

Come join us, as we journey into wholeness, together.

You can join our webinars, in person workshops and online group programs for childless-not-by-choice women

Our group programs are thoughtfully crafted and compassionately facilitated. We developed them in response to listening to your needs and hearing the stories of thousands of childless women. 

We draw from decades of lived experiences, individual specialist counselling for childless women, group work experience and evidence-based group work processes. 

The key perspectives we draw upon include: trauma and grief informed group facilitation; counselling, social work and psychology; community education and competency-based training; feminism, sociology and practical philosophy; community development and inclusive group work practices.

We just love bringing women together, guiding you through our unique programs and witnessing the healing power of women connecting.

Our group facilitators access ongoing professional group practice supervision to ensure the quality and continuous improvement of our programs.  All programs are evaluated and reviewed as part of continuous improvement processes.

We have seen first-hand that connecting with supportive peers can help us to grow through the involuntary childlessness experience.  Come join us, as we make sense of this, together.

The Empty Cradle group programs are delivered using group work methodologies.  This means that our group work programs are neither individual or group counselling or therapy, nor individualised psychological, mental health or medical care.

The Empty Cradle group work programs ask of us to be able to be with our own stories and the impact of our experiences, and be present to the experiences of others.  There can be times in our healing journey when this can be quite hard, so when you apply for our programs, we ask you to consider your needs and your readiness to engage in a group work process.  If you’re not ready now, you might be in the future, and you are welcome to join us then.

We also gently offer, that many women express to us that they wish they had done our programs years ago.  Sometimes they felt the experience would be more overwhelming or may have experienced other resistance that delayed connection, healing and moving forward.

A new group of peers who really understand this experience can be both a healing balm and just priceless.

Our group programs are grief, trauma and shame informed and your wellbeing in these group processes is our first priority.   This means the groups are offered in a way that is authentic, caring and supportive of both  you, the other women and the group.

We know that all of us have shadow and wounded parts, and we seek to offer group processes that will support you to participate in a way that is helpful for your growth, healing and connection.

We ask you to stay in dialogue with us throughout the program so we can support you in this.

Group programs can entail some level of risk and vulnerability, so we ask each women to participate in an onboarding process for each program

The onboarding process includes:

• Completing an application form
• Individual email correspondence
• An individual onboarding zoom session (45-60 minutes)

To apply for a group program we ask you to pay a non-refundable $100 deposit to commence the onboarding process. 

This payment is the deposit and part of the full program cost, not an additional expense.  Once you pay the deposit, a place in the group program will be held for you until the onboarding process is completed.

The onboarding process is a mandatory part of our group programs, even if you have connected with us previously. This means you can receive specific information about the group program and let us know how things are currently for you, particularly if any additional support would be helpful.

Please note, you won’t have a finalised confirmed place in the group program until the individual session is completed. So please hold off on incurring any additional expenses until your place in the program is confirmed (eg travel, accommodation, etc)

Together, we might decide that the group program is not well timed for you now, but could be helpful in the future.  We are happy to explore other support options for you if a group program is not right for you now

In the “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”, one of the foundational texts for the critical pedagogy movement, the Brazilian community educator and philosopher Paolo Freire outlined the importance of conscientization. This is critical consciousness or awareness raising within marginalised groups of their shared experience of 'othering' and the structural nature of this.  It is the process where groups of people come together, share their stories, recognise the commonalities of their experiences and can start to see the cultural, social, political, economic and contextual frames that impact their personal experience.

Thanks

Sarah