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Kate Middleton took a stand for parents.
On Tuesday, the Duchess of Cambridge took her advocating skills to the Family Action charity, where she launched a new national helpline called FamilyLine. The service, run by trained volunteers, provides a telephone line, email and text service for anyone struggling with elements of family life, including parenting, mental health and relationship difficulties.
While meeting with volunteers of the project, the royal mother of three related to the struggles of other mothers, fathers and caregivers juggling the pressures and challenges of raising a family.
“Everybody experiences the same struggle,” the 37-year-old said. While Middleton is a member of the royal family, she spoke candidly of how help can dwindle after you have a child. “You get a lot of support with the baby years…particularly in the early days up to the age of about one, but after that there isn’t a huge amount—lots of books to read,” she said.
“Why she’s a great supporter of our service is that she does recognize that families have the same pressures and struggles and she’s no exception,” a volunteer said of Middleton, who is mom to Prince George, 5, Princess Charlotte, 3, and Prince Louis, 8 months. “She may have slightly different circumstances to the rest of us but, you know, being a parent is being a parent.”
The project falls perfectly in line with Middleton’s ongoing public service interests in mental health and support services for families.
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While launching the helpline, the duchess also silently advocated for women thanks to her outfit. She donned a belted emerald dress, a seemingly custom design of the Yahvi midi dress by London-based brand Beulah.
The dress is adorned with a line of buttons down one side, but is missing the flared sleeves seen on the dress in other colors on Beulah’s website.
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Behind the scenes, the company is working to eradicate modern day slavery. With that goal in mind, Beulah partners with NGO production companies to support employment for women who have survived trafficking and to break the cycle. They further work to enforce a strict code of labor conduct to make sure forced labor and slavery does not exist at any level of their supply chain.
Ultimately, their mission is ” to empower women through the development of skilled craft techniques and sustainable employment in order to break the cycle of poverty,” their website reads.
Sounds like the perfect fit for the Duchess of Cambridge!