Winston’s Wish
www.winstonwish.org
The death of a loved one can be a traumatic event for anyone but can be devastating for a child.
How a child deals with their emotions regarding this event during their childhood is important, if left and not dealt with can leave a lasting scar and can be with them and affect them for the rest of their life.
Winston Wish is a charity and has been around since 1992. They where the UK’s first childhood bereavement charity. They support children dealing with bereavement by providing them with a specialist support service whilst also supporting families who are caring for. They also provide training for professionals to allow them to support them.
They support a child via their Helpline, giving expert advice to support a grieving child or young person dealing with the death of a loved one. They offer support and can provide them with information, discuss options with them and give you practical suggestions so they can find the best way to help a child or young person deal with their emotions.
Their specialist teams are available to answer calls not only from the grieving child or young person but also from family members to professional seeking guidance. They offer advice to families on how to explain to a child what has happened in their own language so that they can understand. They offer guidance and training to schools and other professionals on how best support grieving children and young people from a child returning to school to ongoing support.
They provide advice on various topics accessed via this website from
https://help2makesense.org/category/video/
to support young people going through the grieving process from stories from childhood experiences to videos to help them cope with grief at Christmas.
We all need support during this difficult time and getting the right support for a child or young person, be it a chat with family or friend or needing professional help. Getting the right support at the right time can mean the difference for the child or young person of them being understanding their grief and allowing them to move on or carrying their unresolved grief into adulthood and it effecting them until they manage to deal with it.
If you feel you need help to deal with grief and your emotions then you can access it through…
Winston Wish
You can get help via their ASK email service or by telephone
https://www.winstonswish.org/online-chat/
If you’re experiencing a crisis and need support they offer a free 24/7 anonymous text crisis support within the UK.
https://www.winstonswish.org/crisis-messenger
Whilst all deaths are devastating to a child. How a person died may mean a child needs different support in understanding the person’s death. They need answers to their questions regarding the circumstances of their loved one’s death. Winston Wish has a variety of supporting information covering these areas:
- Death through serious illness
- Homicide
- Suicide
- Military and Emergency services
If a child experiences death of a loved one and their grief is not dealt with the unresolved grief can have a lasting effect through adulthood. Winston Wish is supporting adults who have not managed to resolve childhood grief. They have created a Facebook community to bring together a community who understand what you are going through and allows you to support one another.
Like every charity, they need to raise funds to continue supporting children and a young person dealing with the death of a loved one. By participating in one of their numerous fundraising events you’ll be supporting them so they can continue to help those dealing with the loss of a loved one.
If you feel you would like to fundraise for them please go to their website for further information or contact them on the number provided.