Your stories

Share your story

You can share your story and photos through our simple form.

Before you get started, think about why you want to share your story – maybe you want to raise awareness; share any lessons learnt; or reassure people in a similar position they’re not alone. Whatever your reason, try to make your message come across strongly in your story.

Prompts and questions

Not sure where to start in telling your story? The following questions are prompts to think about what to include in your story. You don’t need to answer all of them if you don’t want to – what’s important is your story includes what matters to you.

• What was your experience of diagnosis? How much did you know about cleft before your diagnosis?
• How did the diagnosis make you feel about your pregnancy/ baby?
• When did you tell your family and friends? How did they react?
• What were your experiences with surgery and treatment?
• Were there any challenges you didn’t expect or you weren’t prepared for?
• Do you talk to your child about their cleft? How do they respond? How do you think they feel about their cleft?
• What is one piece of advice you wish you’d received when your child was diagnosed, or one thing you wish you’d known?
• When did you join the CLAPA Community? How has this helped? What do you get from CLAPA that you can’t access from the NHS Cleft Team?
• Do you think it’s important for parents to have support from an organisation like CLAPA?