Founded | 28 January 1969 |
---|---|
Type | Support Group |
Registration no. | England and Wales Charity number 1082335 |
Focus | Supporting bereaved parents & their families after a child dies |
Location |
|
Area served | (National) 0345 123 2304 (NI) 0288 77 88 016 |
Method | Voluntary mutual assistance |
Key people | Co-founder: Revd Canon Dr Simon Stephens, OBE RN President: The Countess Mountbatten of Burma |
Revenue | £385,181 (2023-24). [1] |
Employees | 9 (2023-24) [1] |
Volunteers | ca 300 (2023-24) [1] |
Website | www |
Compassionate Friends UK (TCF) is a peer support group [2] operating in the United Kingdom. It is a registered charity formed by and for parents whose children have died, irrespective of the child's age at death and the cause of death, [3] and is independent of any religious, philosophical or government body. [4]
It has a national helpline and area coordinators, holds local and national meetings (including residential retreats), and operates information services including advice leaflets, [5] a web site and a postal lending library. All TCF volunteers and most of the small permanent staff are themselves bereaved parents or siblings. [6] TCF works to improve the treatment of bereaved parents in society by educating mental health professionals and informing the public through the publication of books, creation of news reports and dissemination of stories of individual experiences through local media.,. [7] [8] It also co-operates with many charities and other organisations that operate within the sphere of bereavement. [1]
Traditionally, TCF volunteers organise and facilitate local groups that hold regular, free, open meetings in neutral premises. Each group follows TCF's creed, which mandates that bereaved parents, grandparents and siblings attending these meetings need not speak but are free to express their feelings. [4]
More recently TCF has also developed numerous online resources including 12 moderated Facebook groups and many Zoom meetings, for constituencies such as fathers, siblings, and members bereaved by suicide. These remote services expanded greatly during the Covid-19 pandemic, and enable a much wider coverage that can reach isolated individuals wherever they are. Like all TCF's work, the online services are run by volunteers, with operational and administrative support from the office staff, and coordinate with in-person work in a hybrid support model. [1]
TCF was founded in 1969 by the families of Billy Henderson and Kenneth Lawley, who both died in the Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital (now University Hospital Coventry) in May 1968. One grieving mother sent flowers to the other via the hospital chaplain, the Rev (later Canon) Simon Stephens, and the parents decided to meet to find ways to help each other survive their loss. After meeting informally they arranged a meeting with other bereaved parents in a room at the same hospital on 28 January 1969, at which the organisation was founded as The Society of the Compassionate Friends, with the help of Stephens who had by then become chaplain aboard HMS Ark Royal. [9] [10]
The organization expanded across the UK and abroad during the following years. The Compassionate Friends in the US developed following the publication of a story in Time Magazine in 1971 under the title "Therapeutic Friendship", describing the experience of a mother whose daughter had died from cancer. [11] In 2012 there were about 600 chapters [10] around the country. [12] [13] [14]
Stephens was also instrumental in promoting the organisation abroad, [15] and sister organisations were founded in Canada, Australia. [16] and South Africa by 1990, and later on in European countries including France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric, or a lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secular institution, or a private chapel. The term chaplaincy refers to the chapel, facility or department in which one or more chaplains carry out their role.
Grief is the response to the loss of something deemed important, particularly to the loss of someone or some living thing that has died, to which a bond or affection was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, grief also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, cultural, spiritual and philosophical dimensions. While the terms are often used interchangeably, bereavement refers to the state of loss, while grief is the reaction to that loss.
An extended family is a family that extends beyond the nuclear family of parents and their children to include aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins or other relatives, all living nearby or in the same household. Particular forms include the stem and joint families.
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Patricia Edwina Victoria Knatchbull, 2nd Countess Mountbatten of Burma, Baroness Brabourne,, was a British peeress and a third cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. She was the elder daughter of Admiral of the Fleet the 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma and of heiress Edwina Ashley. She was the elder sister of Lady Pamela Hicks, a first cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the last surviving baptismal sponsor to King Charles III. She was a great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
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Disenfranchised grief is a term coined by Dr. Kenneth J. Doka in 1989. The concept describes the fact that some forms of grief are not acknowledged on a personal or societal level in modern Eurocentric culture. People might not like how you may or may not be expressing your grief or view your loss as insignificant, and thus they may feel uncomfortable, or judgmental. This is not a conscious way of thinking for most individuals, as it is deeply engrained in our psyche. This can be extremely isolating, and push you to question the depth of your grief and the loss you’ve experienced. This concept is viewed as a "type of grief", but it more so can be viewed as a "side effect" of grief. This also is not only applicable to grief in the case of death, but also the many other forms of grief. There are few support systems, rituals, traditions, or institutions such as bereavement leave available to those experiencing grief and loss.
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Bo's Place, established in 1990, is a nonprofit organization based in Houston, Texas. It offers free support programs for children, ages 3 to 18, and their families who have experienced the death of a child or an adult in their immediate family, as well as programs for grieving adults. Services include grief support groups offered in English and Spanish, community outreach programs, education and training, and an information and referral line staffed by mental health professionals. The referral line assists individuals that have experienced a death as well as family, friends, co-workers or other concerned individuals who want guidance to support the bereaved. Bo's Place serves over 1,200 children and adults each year and families stay an average of 14 to 16 months.
Henrietta Tayler, known as Hetty, was a London-born Jacobite scholar and First World War Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse.
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