Helping children and young people to deal with their grief

“I didn’t know if how I was feeling was normal, after speaking to someone I felt better.” 

St David’s Hospice Care provides a range of services to patients and their families throughout the journey of terminal illness.

Their Unicorn Project Service supports children and young people through the bereavement of a significant adult in their lives. The sessions they run help children and young people to talk about their experiences and construct their “story” to make sense of what is happening.

St David’s Hospice Care received a grant from the Newport Community Endowment Fund to purchase vital resources to help facilitate conversations and support participants to find the right words to describe how they are feeling. This included story books and personalised items such as memory boxes, bracelets, scrap books and remembering books.

The Unicorn Project has really helped children and young people to deal with their grief and move on from their bereavement, with one parent saying:

“It has been so incredibly reassuring to me to know that my daughter had someone to turn to and discuss the loss of her dad with.

I felt like the best support I could offer to her was to simply ask her if she was ok and to reassure that I was here for her however what the Unicorn Service has been able to offer her is the opportunity for her to talk openly to someone who would listen to her concerns and anxieties and offer suggestions to coping with the loss of her dad.

You will never know quite how much you have touched our lives.”