Grief Encounter: Helping bereaved children

Grief Encounter

Having lost his own father at 17, our managing partner Douglas understands the importance of helping children cope with grief. That’s why we support Grief Encounter, a charity that helps young people and their families deal with bereavement.

What does Grief Encounter do?

Grief Encounter offers a flexible and accessible bereavement service to care and respond to the difficult issues caused by death for families and children in particular.

After the death of a parent or child’s loved one their life changes forever. Combined with emotions of sadness and anger they are often left confused, fearful and anxious.

Grief Encounter aims to help young people find ways out of what they describe as ‘the abyss of grief’ by supporting each family with an individual approach that’s suited to them and their situation.

Their support varies from family Fun Days to one-to-one counselling sessions and often extends to the child’s family members, school and friends.

For the vital service they provide to grieving children Grief Encounter have been praised with several awards, including an AOL Award for innovation in the community and a Helping Hands Award for exceptional support in a caring capacity.

What are Grief Encounter’s future plans?

In the future Grief Encounter hope to continue spreading awareness about bereavement and promote a different, long-term family focused approach to grief management.

They hope to this by:

  • Appointing a Bereavement Liaison Contact Peron in every UK school.
  • Offering a training programme to schools, hospitals, religious organisations and professionals.
  • Creating an interactive up-to-date-website to help support those dealing with bereavement.
  • Running a bi-annual national poetry competition.
  • Holding a National Child Bereavement Day.

What can you do for Grief Encounter?

Every year donations help the Grief Encounter Project support thousands of families in the UK through the trauma of losing a loved one.

For every £1 donated to Grief Encounter 85p goes directly to supporting a family, 8p supports the charity’s operations and provides events for bereaved young people, and 7p helps raise awareness of the challenges those who face grief suffer.

To help Grief Encounter you can either donate or hold a fundraising event.

Volunteers are also highly valued by Grief Encounter so if you cannot donate money please sign up as a volunteer and donate a few hours of your time.

Renovation Insurance Brokers are also proud supporters of Rise Africa UKread more here

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.