Menopause Project questionnaire complete

The team here at York Women’s Counselling Service (YWCS) are delighted to have successfully completed the first stage of our innovative Ways to Wellbeing project -  ‘Empowering Women Through Change: Understanding Your Menopause Journey’.  The focus of the project is to create a model of therapeutic group work support  for women in the community who are going through the menopause.  The aim is to prevent or reduce the potential impact of the menopause on the women’s mental health, work capacity and physical health.

Designing and disseminating a questionnaire was the first step, to gather information about how women experience the menopause and what helps them to manage this important life cycle change.  This is now done and over a two week period no fewer than 357 women completed the questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed and widely shared via thousands through social media and at events and through a leaflet.  

Thanks to your help, we now have a rich and detailed data bank to help shape the design of the groups, the first of which will run later in the spring, and a network of social media connections which will help us recruit women who wish to participate in the groups.  This work is made possible by the generous support of the Ways to Wellbeing Fund.

Next steps are to deliver menopause awareness training for counsellors which includes findings from the analysis of the questionnaire responses and designing and delivering the first round of therapeutic group work sessions, shaped in part by the information gathered in the questionnaires.