18th-24th November is Children’s Grief Awareness Week, which highlights the importance of providing support for children who are bereaved or whose loved one has an advanced or terminal illness. Local Hospice Care charity Phyllis Tuckwell understands how important this support is and provides a range of bereavement services for children, young people and families whose loved one has been cared for by Phyllis Tuckwell.
Phyllis Tuckwell’s Little Rays group offers a safe space where primary school aged children can explore their feelings around bereavement.
Phyllis Tuckwell provides palliative and end of life care for adult patients, and their families and carers, who are living with an advanced or terminal illness, such as cancer. Often its patients are parents or grandparents of young children or teenagers, who may need some support in understanding and processing the feelings that they have around their loved one’s illness and death. They may be feeling sad, lonely, angry or confused, may be struggling academically or socially, or may feel that no-one understands them. Phyllis Tuckwell gives them the opportunity to share and explore these thoughts and feelings in a safe space with trained professionals who can help them to focus on and address their emotional needs.
This support is provided in a variety of ways to suit the individual child or young person. Phyllis Tuckwell’s counsellors offer 1:1 counselling, but some children, particularly younger ones, may prefer to talk to someone they know well, such as one of their teachers. To aid this, Phyllis Tuckwell offers sessions to school professionals, to enable them to support these children. It can also assess the whole family’s needs and work directly with parents, providing guidance on how to approach difficult conversations with their children about death and dying.
Phyllis Tuckwell also runs ‘Little Rays’, a group for bereaved primary school aged children. These six weekly after-school sessions provide a supportive environment where children can explore their feelings through craft, play and storytelling. They also learn emotional skills to help them manage and cope with their loss, which they can use in their daily lives. The group is facilitated by a counsellor and a patient and family advisor specifically trained in bereavement support for children and families.
“Supporting children and young people before and after bereavement is really important,” said Maria Abellan, Patient & Family Support team manager at Phyllis Tuckwell. “Talking to someone who understands, and spending time with other children who share similar experiences, can help them to process their feelings and behaviour, learn how to cope, help them to understand complex emotions such as sadness, anger and confusion, and teach them healthy ways to cope with loss."
All our services are free, but this is only possible due to the generosity of our amazing community. The Government/NHS only provide 25% of our costs, so we need to raise over £25,000 every day to provide our vital services.
Please donate what you can to help keep hospice care available to all those in our community who need us.
