November 20, 2015

ABOUT

About Menopause Support

Picture courtesy Jenny Smith Photography

Menopause Support is a not for profit community interest company and the home of the national #MakeMenopauseMatter campaign, both founded by  Diane Danzebrink.

Diane became acutely aware of the woeful lack of education and information about menopause for both the public and health care practitioners as a result of her own dreadful experience following surgery which put her into surgical menopause.

Determined to use her experience to lead the call for change to ensure that women of the future would not suffer in the way that she did Diane created the national #MakeMenopauseMatter campaign  which calls for mandatory menopause education for doctors, greater menopause awareness and support in the workplace and for menopause to be added to the RSE curriculum in secondary school education.

We are delighted to say that menopause was added to the RSE curriculum in England from September 2020 and all medical students will be taught about menopause from 2024. Huge thanks to everybody who has signed the campaign petition so far.

Diane believes that every woman should have access to factual, evidence based, non biased information, education, advice and emotional support to empower them to take control of their health and well-being during menopause and beyond. Her own experience made her acutely aware of the need for a patient led organisation providing education, information, advice and support and it was this that prompted her to create Menopause Support.


Menopause Support provides private support via telephone and video consultations and bespoke menopause training and support solutions for businesses and organisations and menopause training days for therapists and well-being professionals.

There are lots of free resources available on the website, plus details of our closed Facebook group, The Menopause Support Network led by Diane and supported by six wonderful volunteer moderators, and we have exciting plans for the future.

Diane is a member of the British Menopause Society and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Women’s Voices Involvement Panel. She is regularly invited to speak to the media and has appeared on This Morning, Good Morning Britain, Lorraine, BBC Breakfast, ITV, Channel 4 and Sky News. She can regularly be heard discussing menopause and mental health on the radio and has been invited to write for both the Telegraph and the Guardian and to contribute to articles and books on the subject of menopause and mental health.


Meet the Team

Diane is supported in her mission to #MakeMenopauseMatter by Andrea Swan and Stephanie Kershaw-Marsh who are both passionate about improving menopause care and support. You can read more about these wonderful women below.

Andrea Swan

Andrea is a passionate campaigner for better menopause care and support and is one of the fabulous moderators of Diane’s facebook community group The Menopause Support Network.

She will be the first person you come in contact with when getting in touch with Menopause Support as she is the office manager. Andrea will be happy to help you with your enquiries.

Andrea’s passion for all things menopause has been driven by her own experience which led her to seek support from Diane. During their first consultation Andrea quickly recognised that many of the symptoms that she had been struggling with, including anxiety, were directly related to menopause.

With Diane’s help Andrea armed herself with lots of factual, evidence based information for her doctor and was able to exchange the antidepressants previously prescribed to her for HRT, which made her feel better than she had in quite some time.

A few weeks later Andrea opened up her home to thirty five women and hosted Diane for an Understanding Menopause educational workshop. During the evening it was clear to see lightbulb moments going off all over the room. Seeing this realisation amongst her friends Andrea began to wonder just how many other women must be in a similar situation and the rest, as they say, is history.

As a mother, aunt and godmother Andrea is keen to ensure that women have the correct information about menopause and receive the right care and support from educated GPs and employers rather than having to fight for it as many women still have to.


Stephanie Kershaw-Marsh 

Steph is a former nurse with many years of experience; she originally joined the Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps and subsequently qualified as a Registered General Nurse. Her military and nursing career took her to many locations including conflict areas, caring for service personnel and their families. Steph’s nursing knowledge and experience led to her becoming involved in teaching military medics.

At the age of 41, Steph and her partner bought a yacht and sailed off into the sunset for nine years, which she says, is not as glamorous as it sounds! About five years into living an idyllic, off-grid lifestyle, she started to develop what she now knows to be the symptoms of perimenopause. She describes losing all joy in her life and despite her idyllic surroundings felt irritable and argumentative, angry, short-tempered, and experienced severe menstrual flooding.

Steph was initially refused HRT and told that she was too young to be menopausal at 49. Having done her own research, she returned to the U.K and found a GP who was menopause- aware and happy to prescribe for her.

Steph has been a much valued member of the moderating team on Diane’s private support group for some time and has spent recent years updating her medical menopause knowledge, most recently attending British Menopause Society menopause training for nurses. Steph now helps Diane to provide our 1-1 menopause support consultations, she is passionate about sharing factual, evidence based information to enable women to make informed decisions about their health and to access the care and support that they deserve.