Artwork for podcast The Business of Psychology
Supporting NICU families: Dr Frankie Harrison and Miracle Moon
Episode 15513th December 2024 • The Business of Psychology • Dr Rosie Gilderthorp
00:00:00 00:42:38

Share Episode

Shownotes

Supporting NICU families: Dr Frankie Harrison and Miracle Moon

Welcome to the Business of Psychology podcast. Today I'm really delighted to be bringing you an interview with Dr Frankie Harrison. Frankie is a clinical psychologist and the founder of Miracle Moon. In the episode I'm going to let Frankie tell you a lot about her work, but it's safe to say that I think it's one of the most important independent projects that I've come across in the perinatal mental health space, and I was absolutely delighted to be a small part of Frankie's journey as she's somebody that I have worked with and supported through Psychology Business School. So it's brilliant for me to have Frankie on today to catch up and hear about all the amazing things that she's doing with Miracle Moon. But I also hope that it's going to be really interesting for you to listen to, because we talk about the highs and lows of setting up something that you're really passionate about, working with a co-founder to do that, and also Frankie's aspiration to help many more families that have been through a neonatal intensive care experience.

Full show notes and a transcript of this episode are available at The Business of Psychology

Links for Frankie:

Instagram: @miraclemoonuk

Rosie on Instagram:

@rosiegilderthorp

@thepregnancypsychologist

The highlights

  • Frankie tells us about who she is and her professional background 01:27
  • Frankie talks about what Miracle Moon does and who it exists to help 04:45
  • I ask Frankie how it has been getting Miracle Moon off the ground, and we discuss online workshops and building a community 14:13
  • Frankie reflects on difficult moments in the journey with Miracle Moon 25:06
  • Frankie shares how she and her business partner built a working relationship that's been successful 28:54
  • Frankie tells us her hopes for Miracle Moon and where she sees it going 34:07
  • Frankie tells us how we can connect with her 37:16

The Business Growth Pack

Ready to grow your practice beyond one person and a laptop? 

We are here to support you to build a thriving, impactful and profitable business. 

Invest in our growth pack to confidently grow your service with associates, organisational work or passive income.

Our unique package includes strategy and marketing training from Dr Rosie Gilderthorp, Founder of Psychology Business School, and legal contracts from Clare Veal, Commercial Lawyer from Aubergine Legal.

Together, we will ensure that you have the strategy and documents you need for growth so you can expand your impact and income while maintaining your work-life balance.

Sign up now: The Business Growth Pack

Thank you so much for listening to the Business of Psychology podcast. I'd really appreciate it if you could take the time to subscribe, rate and review the show. It helps more mental health professionals just like you to find us, and it also means a lot to me personally when I read the reviews. Thank you in advance and we'll see you next week for another episode of practical strategy and inspiration to move your independent practice forward.

Transcripts

SPEAKERS

Rosie Gilderthorp, Frankie Harrison

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Hello and welcome to the Business of Psychology podcast. Today I'm really delighted to be bringing you an interview with Dr Frankie Harrison. Frankie is a clinical psychologist and the founder of Miracle Moon. And obviously in the episode I'm going to let Frankie tell you a lot about her work, but it's safe to say that I think it's one of the most important independent projects that I've come across in the perinatal mental health space, and I was absolutely delighted to be a small part of Frankie's journey as she's somebody that I have worked with and supported through Psychology Business School. So it's brilliant for me to have Frankie on today to catch up and hear about all the amazing things that she's doing with Miracle Moon these days. But I also hope that it's going to be really interesting to listen to for you guys, because we talk about the highs and lows of setting up something that you're really passionate about and working with a co-founder to do that, and also Frankie's aspiration to help many more families that have been through a neonatal intensive care experience. So I think you're going to really enjoy the episode today, and I'm going to let Frankie explain the rest in her words.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Hi Frankie, welcome to the podcast. It's so good to have you here.

Frankie Harrison:

Lovely. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

So could you start off by telling me a little bit about who you are and your professional background?

Frankie Harrison:

Yeah, so I'm Frankie, I'm a clinical psychologist. I qualified in 2016, 2017 from the University of Leicester. I was in a period of my life where I had… I've always done this, always had very specific passions that I kind of work on, and for a very long time that was older adults, and that was working with people with dementia. Having had kind of personal experience within that, in the family. So I very much went into clinical psychology with the hat on of being like, I want to work with people with dementia and the whole way through. Had two older adult placements, that was what I wanted to do. I came out of it and I went into a Care Home liaison service, but it was… because those kind of jobs were few and far between, it was in a location, it was in Wiltshire, and none of my family were there, none of my friends were there. We kind of uprooted absolutely everything to kind of go into working there and it was me running the service as a psychologist on my own, as my first job out of being a clinical psychologist.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Wow!

Frankie Harrison:

And because during my training, I've got an ongoing kind of back issue with something called ankylosing spondylitis, I needed to take a further placement. So I was kind of like in that limbo of being like I'm qualified, but I've got to do this extra kind of time here to be able to make up the hours because I've been off sick. So I was still doing that alongside trying to do the job at the same time. And it just got messy, and it felt really really very difficult. So I ended up quitting, without a job that I had to go to. Just kind of said, I can't do this, this doesn't feel right, moved back home and then managed to find a job working in St Andrews, which is a hospital, and it was an inpatient role, working with people with dementia, which was incredibly intense. Again, incredibly…

Rosie Gilderthorp:

It sounds like two really intense first jobs.

Frankie Harrison:

Really really intense job. But I then ended up, after working there for a couple of years, kind of becoming pregnant and working in an inpatient unit where there is a lot of behaviour that challenges, quite risky when you're pregnant. And so, and I had quite a turbulent pregnancy, which I guess I will come back to, but then ended up during having, having my baby and in maternity leave kind of going I can't come back, I don't feel like I can come back to that same space for many a reason, and into kind of private practice I kind of launched myself. I kind of started as an associate to kind of warm up to it and then it's kind of grown and developed from that point into kind of the one to one, the you know, everything that we're kind of doing now. But like I said, I guess we'll get into that in a little bit more detail.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Yeah. So tell me. I know that your practice is called Miracle Moon, a name that I think is really nice. But tell me a bit about what Miracle Moon does now, and you know who it exists to help?

Frankie Harrison:

Yeah. So as part of my personal experience, I had my first baby born at 31 weeks and spent 5 weeks in neonatal care. During that time it was obviously really very difficult, and I kind of came out of it and was looking around for people who were talking about it. Who are talking about the emotional impact of it particularly. I could find practical information about it, but I wanted people talking about, how does it actually feel, how does this actually impact me? And I couldn't find it. I started talking to another mum, who also had her baby at 31 weeks, called Georgie who is a graphic designer as well, and we kind of just both said, hey, let’s create something. So we created an Instagram. Nothing more than that at the moment. It was just an Instagram. It was just to talk about some of the things that people experience and it's just grown from there. And now Miracle Moon is my private practice, I see all of my clients through Miracle Moon. I did some further EMDR training, some some further kind of more specific training and I've kind of built that now as that's my private practice. We do kind of group stuff, and then we've got like a whole other section where we've got like a membership podcast, resources as a way of kind, of supporting parents who have been through neonatal care whether they're in it now, or they're in the life after bit, from a kind of personal and a professional place.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

And you've touched on it there. And I think a lot of the time we, when we have a really clear specialism in private practice, it's because it's something that's touched our lives. And I think that really helps people to connect with what we're doing. And it also helps keep that motivation going. You've got a real reason to want to keep showing up and do something that can be really draining, like Instagram or blogging, or any kind of content creation. So I mean, if you're comfortable, could you say a little bit more about you know, what really left you feeling that this was a service that needed to be created.

Frankie Harrison:

I think like I kind of said, so you know, I kind of was thrown into the kind of world of neonatal care without expecting to be in there. I didn't know much about it at all. I very much went into that kind of like freeze mode throughout, and just kind of like just going through the motions, but just felt completely numb, completely disconnected. And then I came home, and I was just hit with this like wave of anxiety about being at home. I was, I guess, like maybe acting in a way that I wouldn't normally. And I was like, is this what motherhood is like? Like is, you know, the kind of level of anxiety that's experiencing, the intrusive thoughts, the you know, everything. I was like is this, is this normal? And being a psychologist, you kind of think to yourself I should have known, like should have known what you’re kind of going through, but you don't when you're in it, you know you're just going through it. But it was that bit of I reached out for help, and I went to my GP, and I was like, I'm really struggling. The first response was, well, you're a clinical psychologist, so you're not going to need therapy. And when I corrected him, I said, I don't think that's correct. I think I probably do need some support to be able to talk through this. It was then that I got referred to perinatal mental health and got rejected from there. I then got referred to our local IAPT service, and I got rejected from there. And it was like, well, what, where, where do I fit then? And it was because, my, how I was presenting, what it is that I was struggling with which, I guess on a broader scale, was birth trauma, perinatal trauma. It was like, well, you don't fit.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

It’s such a common story. The thing that I was told when I was struggling related to my experience of hyperemesis gravidarum was, oh, you don't have a mental health problem because you know why you feel like this.

Frankie Harrison::

Yeah, completely, completely that. And it was, it was kind of expected that because I was a psychologist in some kind of way that I would, I'd be able to figure it out, you know, myself. So there wasn't the service there, and on looking at it, and from talking to hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of parents who have been through neonatal care, it's a common experience to kind of go through it, seek help, and it not be there. Or even if you do get the help, it's then that quite often you do go and speak to somebody within the NHS. and it's not specific enough. So they don't know it, they don't know what it is that you have been through, they don't know. You're spending time having to explain all of the stuff that you went through during hospital, or why it's so difficult having to leave your baby at night, for example. Like I had some private therapy that wasn't specific at the time, and it felt super invalidating because it was the bit of going, but they're okay now, it wasn't trauma informed, you know it was like, but they're here, they're here, they're okay now. So I just was like, we just need something. We need something for this group of people. You know, it's like Bliss did some research that says that 80% of parents struggle with their mental health after neonatal care, which is just a huge number of people. The amount of people who experience PTSD is like 40% of people. And there's just not the support for people. So it comes out of a passion for wanting to support, but also I think that there's a lot of really like, basic information about things like trauma responses or just validating information about you might feel this, you might experience jealousy when you see other people who have got big, pregnant bumps, for example, or have the birth experience that you didn't have that just allow people to go oh, my goodness, I'm not the only one who's feeling like that, and that feels so powerful and so needed.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Yeah, I really agree. And I think you know, we both work in the perinatal space, and we've probably both experienced a bit of pushback, sometimes people saying, oh, you should just be signposting to NHS services, there are NHS services, you should be encouraging people to use them like the private sector is, you know, not helpful. But you know we both hear stories that show that those services are missing huge swathes of people. You know the example that came into my mind when I was prepping for this podcast was just a couple of weeks ago I had a new client, and she'd been through NICU with her baby, they were in for about 6 weeks. And there was a poster saying, we have a psychology service, text our psychologist, and she'll come see you. And so they text, and they never got a response. And we can understand, you know, we've worked in the NHS, I know how that would happen. And it's… everybody wants to create a really good service. Somebody has had this really good idea actually of, you know, let's make it so the psychologist, it's not chance anymore whether they meet on a ward round, it's you know, they can text the right people, like self triages. It's a great idea. But it just doesn't work, because the funding's not there. Like, there's no cover if that person is off, it's just patchy, like so many NHS services are, and it leaves somebody at their most vulnerable moment feeling rejected. And I said, oh, did you speak to anybody, or did you, you know, follow that up. And she said, oh, no, I assume they just thought that I didn't need the help, and it was going to somebody who needed it more.

Frankie Harrison:

Yeah. And it's so invalidating, so invalidating, because you're just then kind of left with that struggle and thinking that oh, my issue must not kind of be big enough, or they've got more important people, or whatever it is. Then those people end up not accessing the help that they need. And they've got, so at the moment there's been a huge push, which is fantastic, to get psychologists onto neonatal units. And there's so many more now compared to when I first started. There weren't psychologists, barely any, and now there are psychologists on most of the units. But they're there for minimum days. They're you know, maybe like 2 or 3 days for the majority, and they don't have any provision to be able to support people on discharge, either. So yes, it's fantastic that it's there, but it's needed so much, and they can't, they're so stretched thin with dealing with the most, the most poorly people. But given that, it's like 80% of people struggling with their mental health, so many more people need that support.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Yeah. And if you imagine that it's so hard to be in that, you know, probably 1% to 2% of people that can be supported by the psychologist while there on the ward, and then post discharge, those people are all going to have an idea of why they feel that way, so they're very likely to get the same experience that we got. Oh, it's not depression, or it's not anxiety, because you know that you're anxious because of the feeding regime, or you know exactly what it is that’s making you anxious, so you're not mentally unwell, you don't get any help from us. So unhelpful.

Frankie Harrison:

No, it's so so so unhelpful.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

So I'm really glad that Miracle Moon is there plugging that gap for people. And I feel like we need to make this as visible as it can possibly be to as many people who need it. And so how has it been getting Miracle Moon off the ground?

Frankie Harrison:

So it's been 4 years that we've been running in August, and it's been a, it's been a slow progress. I think people can kind of look at what you are doing now at the 4 year mark, and go oh, it's going fantastic, you've done so much and stuff, but it has been slow. It's been kind of consistently showing up, like for a long period of time, I think it was the first year, I wasn't doing private practice with clients from Miracle Moon, because I was kind of, I was still making sense of my own stuff as well, and it was just a space where I was building a community, mostly on Instagram. So it was after that, where I was kind of doing associate stuff that I was like, okay, so I'm going to start seeing individual clients. And then I started seeing people kind of one to one. And then I was like, okay, I'm going to really need some EMDR training for this. I went down that route, and it wasn't until then that it then started to go okay, now I feel like I can really support these people. I feel like I'm really equipped to be able to handle the trauma. I'd had my own therapy, my own private therapy by that point, my only EMDR, and it felt like, okay, I can kind of bridge this gap, move over. But that was scary, because it went from being somewhere that I had like an income where, as an associate where I could be like, can I have another client, please, where you’d just get it, to them being like you need to sell yourself. And I think that there was a period of a little while where people were getting used to me doing that because the majority of my clients are from Instagram. I don't advertise myself really anywhere else. So just saying, this is what I'm doing, I have spaces for therapy but you have to pay for them, when I'd been offering stuff for free for such a long period of time was quite a tricky transition for people. I then kind of put everything into the one to one stuff, and then from there it was like, okay, so let's start doing some different stuff. We started building some different resources, some workshops, some that went well, some that flopped and it's just been a kind of like trial and error kind of thing. And then we've got to the membership at this point, and it's still in it's like early stages of being there for the past 6 weeks. And it's like is it another error, is it, you know what, you know, we need to wait and see what this could be. Because it still feels very, very early.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

And I think that's the perfect mindset. When you're doing something that hasn't been done before, it is entrepreneurship. And if you read the entrepreneurship literature, that is all about trying something, looking at the metrics, getting actual data and then changing it. But you will never, and this is like the opposite of the way that psychologists and therapists tend to think, that you can't create something perfect. You're always going to create something imperfect, get feedback, co-create it basically with the people that you're working with. Which I think, if that's your expectation, is really fulfilling, but if you go in with the expectation that I should put the right thing out there first, and it should be a success, then, of course, all you feel is failure when it's not. But it can be really hard. Like, I'm glad that you mentioned that you've put workshops out there that have flopped, so have I, so many. I got childcare once to cover me for an online workshop that I was running, and I only sold 9 places on it, and nobody showed up. So I had a babysitter downstairs, and I was like, do I just…? Do you know what I did though? I actually, I was like, well, some people have paid, so they're gonna get the recording, so I just recorded it on zoom as if there were people there.

Frankie Harrison:

Yeah, that's what I did 100%, exactly the same that I've done, exactly the same. I'm just gonna run it, anyway.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Yeah. And I hope that helps people listening to this. Like, you will probably have to go through that because it's only through experiencing that that you then work out okay, they weren't interested enough in that title, so how can I probably put out the same content but give it a different spin? Maybe use some different examples that are actually going to touch on what people care about enough to turn up to something.

Frankie Harrison:

Yeah. And I think one thing that I found quite a lot is the phrasing of it, and figuring out what what you're, the messaging that you're giving to people, quite often with parents particularly, a lot of people are less likely to invest in something about themselves, I've found, and they're more likely to invest in something that helps them be the parent that they want to be, or that influences their kid, or that helps them be present or whatever it is. Like, so finding the messaging around that is really important. But it's a whole different job, isn't it? Like you have to be a copywriter, or a marketer, or whatever, and it's a whole learning process which we weren't taught.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Yeah, it is. But I do think that going through that process gets you closer to the people we're trying to help. And I worry sometimes, I think this is probably true for therapists as well, but definitely for psychologists, we can get really far away from the people that we’re trying to support. You know sometimes you can see it in service design. And you think oh, my goodness, what an experience this is for people coming into the service, like just really strange things. Like, as a service user the other day I was ringing up to chase something for one of my kids, and they went, oh, the questionnaires team will get that out to you. I was like, why didn't the paediatrician just email it to me at the end of the appointment. I mean, this is not patient centric, and it's not saved anybody any time, it's just bonkers. But it's what happens when we don't spend enough time really immersed in what is the experience we want these people to have? How do we want them to feel? How do we want them to, you know, benefit from what we're doing? And you only get that by actually talking to people.

Frankie Harrison:

And I think that that's the bit that has been so key in what we have done, because I don't use that word community lightly. It feels like a community that we have built. Whenever we put out a question box, for example, on Instagram, we get tons of people responding. We get people who are there who want to help each other. We're getting people who are kind of really being vulnerable and very vocal about what it is that they've been through who want to share their story, for example. So whenever I am creating something, the first thing that I do is check out do people want this? And the second is, I say, help me build it. What is it that you want? What topics do you want? What are we talking about? What are you struggling with? There's so much information that I've gathered, and it's why, even though with Instagram, with all of its glitches, I do really like it because I've been able to get that connection with the people who kind of need it. And they've helped me to create what it is that we now have, and I know that it comes from a place of like, this is what people need.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

And I think what's key to that is the connection. It's really hard to keep going with social media when you're just broadcasting. Whereas you never started it from that perspective, you weren't broadcasting. The purpose was much more collaborative from the beginning. And I remember actually, when we first met, when you first came into Psychology Business School, we were on a group call, and lots of people were talking about how social media was really hard, and I think probably even I was talking about like you know, I just sometimes feel like I'm just screaming into a void. And you're like oh, I don't feel like that. No, my Instagram is really different. And I went and checked it out, and I was like, this is really different. This is exactly how good social media works in my view.

Frankie Harrison:

And that's why I still enjoy it, I think. Like, I don't think I've ever got to the point with it where I'm like, I'm bored of this, or I feel like I'm posting the same stuff or not getting in the engagement because it always, we always get that engagement, it always lands. And if it doesn't, then I'm like yeah, next post, next topic, like, let's talk about this in a kind of different way, or whatever it is. Or I kind of go okay, it's because I tried to put a link sticker, and Instagram didn't want me to take them somewhere else, or whatever it was. So you spend a little bit of time going okay, let's get back to the nurturing stuff. Let's get back to the chatty stuff and it builds up again.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

I just think it's so interesting to hear you talk about that and how different that is from the way a lot of people perceive their social media. But I think it's almost, you valued it for a thing in itself before it became just a vehicle for promoting your business, and I, you know no shade on anybody that is just using it as a vehicle to promote their business, I do that, there are lots of platforms that I'm on, and it is purely broadcast, and I'm just trying to get people somewhere else, because that's where I do my community thing. But you do have to, I think, have somewhere where you're really connecting with people. And it's okay to then on the other channels that you're less interested in, just have that kind of shop front, as I like to call it, where it's just if you happen to look me up you will find me, and you'll be able to see what I do. But I'm not really interested in building community there.

Frankie Harrison:

Yeah, and that's what it is throughout all of the other ones for me. So like LinkedIn and TikTok and all that, I have stuff there, but I'm not there, like I'm on Instagram, and I'm kind of, I'm nurturing that, I'm present on that, but the other stuff is just shopfront stuff, for sure.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Yeah. And I think it's so important. If you want to build something like your membership or anything, really, where you're creating something that isn't just a one to one therapy experience, then you do need to have that home where people can really connect with you and get to know you and each other a lot better. So I think it's a lovely example of that, and I think everybody should go and check out your Instagram. I'll have the link in the show notes so that they can do that because there aren't that many good examples actually, out there. So yeah, be prepared for a few more followers. So, you know, we've talked about a few of the challenges that you've faced. Has there been any other really difficult moments in the journey, because over 4 years, I imagine there's some real highs and lows.

Frankie Harrison:

I think at the beginning it felt like we were knocking on doors to try and get the conversation about neonatal care out there, and they were just being shut. So I remember reaching out to more mainstream motherhood, kind of podcasts for example, and it being like no, it doesn't, you know it's too niche, doesn't feel like the kind of thing that we want to be talking about. And then you get one person who's like, yes, let's talk about it, and then doors start opening elsewhere. So for me, it was the Happy Mum, Happy Baby podcast for example, and it felt from that part, it was like, that felt like a big podcast space. It felt like people kind of went, oh, okay, this is something that we want to talk about, that podcast episode did really well, there were a load of people who resonated with it, who have been through it. And then I started getting more people going hey, we want you to talk about this for NICU awareness month, we're talking about prematurity awareness month, can we have you to to talk about it? So kind of having that period of being like, it just feels like I'm kind of hitting my head against a brick wall for such a long period of time, it then just took that kind of one bit to kind of flip it, but it was a long slog at the beginning, and we had so many conversations of being like, is this too niche? Is this something that is actually going to be successful? Is this going to be something that we can actually make any money off? And you know, we still don't make very much money, we put a huge amount of money of our own, kind of into it, to make it sustainable, but we're kind of like, this is something, this is something that is needed, very much so. And we're in this period now, which is another difficult bit, of going how do we grow this? How do we get this to the people who need it? How do we get it out there? And we're figuring out at the moment whether we become a CIC, whether we become a charity, whether we look at funders, and that feels like another sticking point that we're unsure about. But I think what I've learned about those sticking points is that what quite often comes from that is growth. So I'm like, I feel a bit uncomfortable at the moment, but we'll figure it out, and then, and then the thing will happen, and it will be okay. So we're in that bit at the minute.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Yeah, it is essential, unfortunately. And it's another thing which doing the MBA has really kind of crystallised for me. It's like, no, actually, every successful business goes through these crisis points, and then you get to grow a bit, and then you'll feel like everything's broken, and you'll feel really uncertain again, and and it will be broken, and you might lose money, but then from that you'll get clarity, and then you'll grow again. And it’s, it is impossible to be in a business which goes beyond that very safe model of, you know, I'm just going to do one to one, and I'm going to get my name known, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. But if you do have aspirations to work in a space which is not well served at the moment, then this is the sort of cycle that you're gonna have to go through. And it's just so good, I'm so grateful to have you here to normalise that for people, because I know how horrible it feels when you're like, I've got everything sorted. And now it's all broken again.

Frankie Harrison:

Yeah, completely, completely. And I think the difficult thing is like, I'm ideas, like, I'm ideas all the time, like just constantly pinging off and stuff, and some of them I manage to kind of go through. But then, when they flop, of course that feels awful. But it's kind of figuring out like, which way to go with all of those ideas and finding you know, I get like, you know, we were saying before the podcast, sometimes you do just want someone to tell you, but equally you don't want someone to tell you. You want to be your own boss and do it your own way as well. So it's a constant push-pull with that.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

And that brings me actually to a question I had, because you successfully work with Georgie, and you know I know a lot of people feel like it'd be great to work with a partner, but maybe also, it would be tricky to work with a partner, and that's how I feel about it. So can you share like, how did you manage building that into a working relationship that's been successful?

Frankie Harrison:

Do you know, I don't know. It is an anomaly for me. Like, I actually built, I started another business with two other psychologists, you know, a couple of years ago, so alongside Miracle Moon, and it didn't, it didn't end up going well, and the partnership didn't work. So I think there was something there that I was like, maybe it's the fact that I'm working with someone who isn't a psychologist. The fact that our roles are very clearly defined, like I can do the clinical stuff, I can do the writing stuff, I can do the talking to camera, the talking to the people stuff, I can kind of lead this in its clinical way. She's a graphic designer, so she does tech. She does the website, she does the making stuff look great. But we both have a very clear vision for what we, how we want to support people and what we feel that people need. So we both, and because we've both had that personal experience as well, we both come from a place of passion with it too. I think it's also probably quite helpful that we weren't friends first. So it's really, it's really odd in the way that we did meet because it was over the pandemic. People were connecting online. She lives 3 and a half hours from me, I've met her maybe 10 times in our lives, but we talk all the time. So I think having a little bit of that distance, but knowing like this is what the relationship is. And we've always been very explicit about having open conversations from the very, very start, and we've always been able to kind of go and like it's one of my things where I kind of go hey, you haven't spoken to me for a while. Do you hate me? And she's like no, I don't, I'm busy. I'm like great, and it's just very easy to have that kind of conversation without there being anything else behind it. But it's yeah, it's just a, it's good, t's just a good relationship I think.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Sounds really positive, and I think there's something in that about knowing what your roles are. I think where it often does get quite tricky is when you might have two people that want to do a similar role, or have, you know, different views. But I also think it's helpful, because you don't have the same professional background, a bit like what we were talking about before we press record, you're probably less vulnerable to falling into the kind of over psychologising track.

Frankie Harrison:

Yes, yes, completely that. And I think that that's what I found in the other business, is we, it just felt like we were too much psychologists talking to psychologists. Like it didn't feel like we were moving out of that into business, you know enough? And whereas she's got this kind of like mindset of marketing and business and setting up her own business and website design and stuff like that, so it allowed me to get unstuck in that kind of way too, rather than just circling with the psychology quite often.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Yeah, I often think somebody with a different background is quite good to run something by. If you're getting stuck on a piece of content, or you know, if you're doing a training module or something, and you just can't stop seeing what's not perfect about it, then I think often that other pair of eyes that might see different problems to you, it can really unlock the whole thing. So it sounds like you've got a good thing going on.

Frankie Harrison:

Yeah, definitely. And you know also that bit of being able to like, I remember when we did our first workshop, I remember her reading through it and being like, I don't understand what this means like, and that was really helpful because it allowed me to kind of go okay, I need to change the way that I word this or whatever. So, having that was really helpful too.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Yeah, I think we need that voice. We so often need that. And it can be really hard to get it, because obviously, people that are your friends first, they basically want to please you most of the time. And so I think, you know, it's really nice to hear a story where you met, you both had a mission, and you could both see that the other person would be useful in that mission. And I'm assuming you're kind of friends now?

Frankie Harrison:

Oh, yeah, 100%.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

But that mission's at the heart of it.

Frankie Harrison:

Yeah, completely, yeah. And you know, you know, we were friends in the way that you can be of meeting a stranger over the Internet, that we develop that friendship and that connection by having similar stories and all of that kind of thing. But no, she's, you know, my closest friend now. She's absolutely yeah, fantastic, we talk all the time. So yeah, definitely.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

It's such a nice story. So what are your hopes for Miracle Moon? Where do you see this going?

Frankie Harrison:

Oh, I think that's the bit that we're at at the moment. And I think, like I said, there's so many different ideas, and it's like I don't know whether we stick at being a limited company, and we go down the route of do we get corporate help with this? For me, I feel like what we need with the membership is we also, we need people to kind of, you know, be a part of it and stuff, but I also would love to have some funded spaces. That's what I would love to be able to happen. I would love to be able to have it so that people can access it when they really want it. I would love to be able to get to people who need it when they are in the NHS. But the barriers, and being able to do that, are really tricky. If we could do it in a way where we were kind of contracted, or whether there were kind of charities attached to neonatal cares that funded some spaces, or whatever it was, then that would be my kind of goal. But our investment at the moment is very much around this membership because it's got all the information that people need during their experience, all the way through to discharge and life afterwards, which is the bit that is missing. Like that kind of like, hold your hand while you're there, but also the whole way through to years afterwards as well, because we know it does impact people for so long. But then we've got access to professionals in the space, we've got access to me in the space doing kind of lives and Q & A's. We've got the community aspect as well, which is really growing, which is people talking to each other and supporting each other. We've got tons, tons and tons of stuff. So I so see the value in it and I so see that people, it would help so many people because I needed it. So it's like, let's, we just need to get it out there. We just need to get it to more, to more people.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Absolutely, and I think it's a great opportunity, because all of those avenues you've mentioned I could really see working. It's about picking which one to focus on first without closing the doors, I think, to any of the others. Because if you look at what something like Headspace has done, I don't think there are any of those avenues that Headspace hasn't pursued.

Frankie Harrison:

Okay, that's interesting.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

And obviously, now they've gone into this whole workplace wellbeing platform, which is, you know, a different thing again. But when they just had their meditation app, I believe all of those routes. I think there were charities funding it. I think the NHS was funding it, still is. I think the armed forces are, loads of corporates offer it for their employees, so I wouldn't say that any of those avenues mean you couldn't then explore another one. So there's loads of different ways of getting the right people into that membership. So it's exciting. But as we've reflected on also feels uncomfortable. I know that.

Frankie Harrison:

Yeah, completely. And you kind of do just want someone to go here you go, do these next 10 steps. Like, that would be great, if someone could do that. But it's the figuring it out bit for yourself, which I'm currently in.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Absolutely. Well, it's been so wonderful to talk to you, Frankie. I really appreciate your time today. I think a lot of people are going to be really inspired by your story. I'll make sure that all of your links are in the show notes and I'm particularly going to send people over to Instagram to connect with you there, what's your handle?

Frankie Harrison:

We're @miraclemoonuk

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Brilliant. Go and find Frankie there. It's a really good example of Instagram doing exactly what it should do, and also very helpful if you do know anybody going through this experience, or if you might be going through it yourself.

Frankie Harrison::

Thank you.

Rosie Gilderthorp:

Thank you very much, Frankie.

Frankie Harrison:

Thank you for having me.

Chapters

Video

More from YouTube