Help for parents and carers supporting grieving children

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How can Winston’s Wish help parents and carers supporting grieving children?

Caring for a bereaved child or young person can be complex. What should you say? How should you act? Is there something specific you should be doing or not doing? How do you know if your child is coping?

Whilst we can’t take away a young person’s loss, we can help you to help them thrive again.

As well as providing direct bereavement information and support to young people, Winston’s Wish helps parents and family members to provide the best support possible.

Whether it’s helping you to have your first conversations with children about death, activities to help young people express their feelings or simply understand how children, teenagers and young adults grieve differently depending on their age, their circumstances and their type of bereavement.

We’re here to help you support your children, whether it be in anticipation of a death (pre-bereavement), in the immediate days following a bereavement or even months or years down the line.

Any young person up to the age of 25 who has experienced the death of someone important to them can reach out directly to Winston’s Wish through our on-demand services.

They can email, chat with us online, text or call our helpline. Those aged 13 or over can also refer themselves for further bereavement support services.

We encourage you to encourage bereaved children and young people to reach out to us directly themselves, so they can own and start their grief support journey on their own terms.

All of our services are online to ensure as many people as possible have access to bereavement advice and support, no matter where they live.

We have information available in languages other than English and if you click the circle icon with a stick man at the bottom left of your screen you can use our accessibility toolbar to change the language, font, colours, size etc of the website.

Information about grief

Knowing what grief is and understanding what the common responses to a death are, can be the first steps in helping a child or young person make sense of what they’re going through.

We produce a range of content including videos, blogs, books, talks and workshops that help young people explore their grief. For content aimed directly at young people aged 13 plus, please visit our support for young people page.

You can access a range of content on topics such as ‘how to tell a child someone has died’, ‘coping with birthdays, anniversaries and special days’ and ‘managing separation anxiety’ and lots more on our website.

There’s also a huge variety of activities, reading lists and our own extensive publications and resources which you can explore to help the child or young person you are supporting.

We also regularly host monthly online ‘Growing with Grief’ talks where you can learn about the common themes of grief and ask any questions to our team.

Talk Grief

Talk Grief is our new dedicated online space for grieving teenagers and young adults. They can talk to bereavement professionals, hear from other young grieving people, and share how they grieve: the good, the bad and the ugly.

Information and advice

Advice and resources to support grieving children and young people, including on bereavement by suicide, homicide and serious illness and for children with SEND.

Live grief talks

Our monthly online ‘Growing with Grief’ talks for parents and carers can help you learn more about grief, how it impacts children and young people and ways to support them.

Publications and resources

Specialist books written by Winston’s Wish to help you support grieving children and young people, plus memory boxes to store treasured items and free activities to download.

On-demand grief support

If you need some guidance on what to say to your child, you can reach out to a member of our team.

Whatever your concern, we’ll listen and offer guidance on your next steps. Nothing is off limits, we’ll listen without judgement and you can even chat to us anonymously if you’d prefer to do so.

Whether it’s a one-off or a conversation you need to come back to multiple times over, you can reach us on the different ways listed below. You can also encourage your child to use any of our on-demand services if they want to talk to someone about their grief.

If you need to speak to us in a language other than English, we can use interpreters over the phone, and we can use the Relay UK app if you have hearing or speech difficulties.

Call us for free on 08088 020 021 between 8am and 8pm, weekdays.

Email us on ask@winstonswish.org or fill out our contact form and we’ll reply within two working days.

Chat online between 8am-8pm, weekdays by clicking the blue ‘Chat with us’ button at the bottom right of your screen.

For out of hours mental help support, text WW to 85258 to speak with someone from our trusted partner, Shout. For urgent support in a crisis, please call 999.

Peer support for parents and carers

Being a parent of carer is busy at the best of times, but throw grief into the mix and it can feel like you’re spinning out of control. Dealing with your child’s grief as well as your own can feel difficult, lonely and isolating. But there are others out there who are going through it too.

Our parent and carer peer support groups bring people together to share valuable perspectives, advice and to tell their story (although there is no obligation to do so). We also run face-to-face Walk and Talk events for bereaved families in Bristol to connect with each other.

Online support groups

Connect with other parents and carers going through the same experiences as you to share valuable perspectives and advice.

WAY Widowed and Young

WAY Widowed and Young is a national charity which offers a peer-to-peer support network to people across the UK who have been widowed before their 51st birthday.

Bereavement support for children and young people

If you feel like the young bereaved person in your care is in need of additional support, a series of one-to-one sessions with a Winston’s Wish Bereavement Support Worker could help. Together, they will openly and safely explore the young person’s feelings and discover the coping mechanisms that will work for them moving forward.

We also recognise that connecting young people with one another has the power to transform a young person’s perspective on grief. Our grief support groups offer young people the opportunity to meet others in similar circumstances, share experiences, reduce feelings of isolation and build connections.

In some cases, and at the discretion of Winston’s Wish, group sessions with family members can be arranged to help you all move forward together.

Please note that one-to-one and group support is accessed by referral only. Young people aged 13 or over are encouraged to complete their own referral if appropriate, please feel free to help them with this. If you are submitting a referral on behalf of a young person, someone from Winston’s Wish will assess the child or young person’s individual circumstances to ensure they receive the right service for them. If it’s decided this isn’t the right service for them, a member of our team will guide you towards the most appropriate support.

Bereavement counselling for children and young people

For most bereaved children and young people, the support and comfort they find through our content and on-demand services is enough. However, for those who have experienced severe, traumatic and/or multiple bereavements, or if a young person has complex personal circumstances, it may be that they need more focused and dedicated support.

Bereavement counselling may help. If it’s found that a child or young person could benefit from counselling, they will be matched with an appropriate counsellor who will help them to safely explore their feelings and experiences.

Please note that bereavement counselling is accessed by referral only. Young people aged 13 or over are encouraged to complete their own referral if appropriate, please feel free to help them with this. If you are submitting a referral on behalf of a young person, someone from Winston’s Wish will assess the child or young person’s individual circumstances to ensure they receive the right service for them. If it’s decided this isn’t the right service for them, a member of our team will guide you towards the most appropriate support.

You might also be interested in

Support for young people

All our information and advice aimed directly at young people, plus our on-demand services, bereavement support and counselling for them.

Grief in Common podcast

Listen to young people from different backgrounds and experiences have honest conversations about their grief and their feelings in our podcast.

Support us

Winston’s Wish is a charity and relies on donations to help us do what we do. Find out all the ways you can get involved and support us.

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