Our services include:
- Working with schools
- Support for families
- Training for professionals
- Buddy service
- Grief groups
- Family events
- Helppoint
Buddying Service
When a family becomes bereaved of a loved one their whole world can stand still. Everything feels too much, I don’t want them to feel how I feel, so I start asking questions:
- how can I possibly tell my child that the person they love has died?
- How do I answer their questions?
Our compassionate Buddies who are fully trained volunteers are here to help you talk to your children about their loss and support them and your family in the early days and beyond of bereavement.
“I had never talked about Grandad before as I was worried I would upset Mum or Nan if I did. My Buddy didn’t get upset and she listened to me.”
Child working with a Buddy, April 2017
You can self-refer to us or a health or education professional can refer a family when someone has recently lost a loved one.
We will be able to offer:
- regular telephone support
- email contact
- face to face advice and support
- resources for your child
- online support
on how to talk to your child about the death you have experienced and how then to prepare for a funeral and the living on without them.
Please note, all our volunteers have been DBS checked.
Grief Groups
Our family grief groups are not currently run due to Covid-19 but please contact us for details of our online support groups.
We run grief groups for the whole family. These groups run for 6 weeks on a weekly basis. The aims of the groups are to bring families together who have all been bereaved.
“Really enjoyed the sessions. The volunteers were so supportive and I made some lovely friends, feels like a family. Keep the groups and support going, you are all fabulous”
Adult participant in Grief Group, April 2017
We all meet in the same place but during the evening we will split into three groups: children, young people and adults in order to work age appropriately. These groups are available from eight months after your loss.
The groups are dramatherapy based and we look at difficult feelings, collecting memories, sharing stories and discovering ways to deal with our grief using age appropriate methods and techniques.
After the groups have finished we will run regular family events in order to remember our loved ones and continue the friendships and bonds made in the groups.
Groups are facilitated by fully qualified dramatherapists and our trained, DBS checked volunteers.
If you are interested in joining our grief groups please contact us and we will arrange for one of our family support workers to contact you.
We are delighted to announce that the Big Lottery Fund has awarded us a grant to support our grief groups over the next 12 months. Our first programme of groups began last week in Orpington and runs for six weeks, where we welcomed five families. We will run two more programmes in the Spring and Summer 2017. We would like to say a huge thank you to the Lottery for supporting Living On.
“I was amazed by the positive changes that occurred by the end. It was obvious that these sessions had had a big impact on many of the participants”
Grief Group Volunteer, April 2017
