Every day in the UK more than 100 children experience the death of a parent or sibling. Winston’s Wish is a national charity with over 25 years of experience of supporting bereaved children. Our vision is a society in which every child can get the help they need when someone close to them dies.
Many bereaved children struggle to understand what has happened and find it hard to express how they feel after the death of a loved one. They may experience difficult emotions such as grief, anger and sadness as well as feeling isolated from their friends who may not understand their experience. Bereaved children are more likely to develop mental health problems, fall behind at school or turn to alcohol or drugs. They are at greater risk of drifting into youth offending, having relationship problems or suffering from low confidence.
The grant from the Pixel Fund will help support our Suicide Programme that provides specialist support when a child loses a loved one from suicide. Last year 16% of the children we helped had been bereaved by suicide. Often children bereaved by suicide experience additional difficulties because of the way the person died. They face what we call ‘grief with the volume turned up’ - social stigma, unanswerable questions, guilt and blame. Sadly, recent studies show that bereaved children are at greater risk of taking their own lives and children bereaved by suicide are at greatest risk of dying by suicide.
However, we know from our 27 years’ experience that with the right support children who have been bereaved can go on to achieve everything they want to in life.
We supported Josh and his mum following the death of his dad, by suicide:
Josh was struggling with his grief and had become distant at home. He received support from our team, including individual face-to-face and group support, where Josh was able to meet other bereaved young people.
Josh’s mum reflected on the difference our support made to Josh and his emotional wellbeing:
‘Josh received an award from his school at prize giving for his contribution towards making other students aware of Winston’s Wish...I could not be prouder...To think how much he was struggling at first just shows how he really has turned the most negative into a positive! It just goes to show with the right support (emotional and professional) children can move forward into adulthood with a positive outcome. This was the only thing I wanted for Josh after his dad died and with hard work from Josh and myself, plus the support from Winston's Wish we have achieved this. I couldn’t be happier!’