Supporting bereaved parents and their families
The Compassionate Friends
The Compassionate Friends (TCF) is the UK’s only national charity providing peer support to bereaved parents, adult siblings and grandparents who have experienced the death of a child, sibling or grandchild.
Find out more about peer support here: What is peer support?
Our Mission
The Compassionate Friends exists to make a difference by providing support, understanding, empathy and hope to bereaved parents, siblings and grandparents who have experienced the death of a child of any age (from 1 month old to an adult child) and from any cause.
We do this by offering high quality, accessible peer support services and information to bereaved parents and their families. We also provide information to professionals supporting bereaved parents.
Our Vision
Every bereaved parent, adult sibling and grandparent throughout the UK can find and access the lifeline of high quality, appropriate and safe peer support services.
Our Values
These basic principles guide all our activities and interactions:
- Empathy
- Compassion
- Respect
- Integrity
- Inclusivity
The focus of our work and who benefits from our services
“Every parent’s nightmare is to lose a child”.
This is a cliche. But, for many, many families nightmare tragically becomes reality. Each year in the UK 9,000 children and young people under the age of 30 years die (Office of National Statistics). This figure does not include the adults (87,000 in 2019) who die at the age of 30 or over many of whom leave grieving parents who have tragically outlived their son or daughter.
It is not an overstatement to say that the impact of child loss on parents and families – whether sudden or anticipated - is devastating. Grieving parents suffer deep trauma and intense and often overwhelming pain following a loss that is so out of the natural order. Both the physical and emotional impact of the death of a child of any age in the family is huge, intense, complex, and often long-lasting. Parents’ ability to cope with child loss can be exacerbated by the lack of support services and appropriate information. Many professionals or family and friends are not aware of the enormity and long-lasting impact of child loss on an individuals’ physical and mental health.
Our volunteers – all bereaved parents, siblings or grandparents themselves - provide support, understanding and hope to those who have suffered the death of a son or daughter from any cause - for instance as a result of road traffic incident, a short or longer term illness, sudden unexpected death, by suicide or through drug or alcohol use. We are the only UK-wide charity offering this vital peer-to-peer support to parents and their families.
TCF has no religious affiliations - we offer support to all bereaved parents, adult siblings and grandparents both with faith and those with none.
Support Offered: The Compassionate Friends | Find support
For bereavement support call our Helpline on: 0345 123 2304
(Open 10 am - 4 pm, 7 - 10 pm every day of the year)
Email: helpline@tcf.org.uk
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