Dubbo's Rochelle Olsen named state finalist in AgriFutures Rural Women's Awards

"I didn't really think I would be on the radar for something like this - but I'm excited for it because I'm excited about what it could do for those I service so I have all fingers and toes crossed that we can come through with the award," she told the Daily Liberal.

Ms Olsen - a Dubbo local and trained pharmacist - founded the Baby Loss Mentor and Bush Blossoms programs after the loss of her son, Edward, at just seven hours old.

Her programs - built around her own lived experience and training she received in loss mentoring - aim to support other country women who have been through pregnancy or infant loss, experiences that can be "incredibly isolating and traumatic" for women who go through them.

"The point of it is to find the people within your community that are understanding of it and who will support you and make you feel safe and understood," Ms Olsen explained.

"And so you can enter back into your town or community feeling okay and feeling like people understand what you've been through because they've been educated about it - there's none of this 'she's really strong' or 'resilient'.

"They need a safe space to express their emotions and to get real tools and resources that they can use. Grief is life-long, it's not something that does get fixed but we can work with it and learn to cope with it."

The AgriFutures Australia Rural Women's Awards have been running for the past 21 years.

One woman is selected from each state or territory to receive a $15,000 Westpac grant to help their project, business or program and access professional development opportunities and alumni networks.

Should she win the award, Ms Olsen will use the funding to expand the reach of her program to other rural areas where rates of stillbirth, miscarriage and infant loss are on average higher than in metropolitan areas.

"I've been wanting to expand the program and this will make it so much quicker and so much easier," she said.

"We've got all these women out there who potentially have had no help and maybe haven't even discussed their experience with anyone other than their husband or partner. It's really daunting.

"To have a community and feel safe within that is really important to be able to work your way through whatever you're going through. The goal is that we can have a blossoms community in each area so people can meet up with other baby loss mums and have a cuppa and a cry."

The winner of the AgriFutures NSW and ACT award will be announced on the 18th May, 2023.

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: