Winston's Wish - for bereaved children and their families

Key Facts

Location

All areas

Project Criteria

Bereavement

Project funding

£335,975

Funding round

Round 1

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Set up in 1992, Winston's Wish is a leading national bereavement charity providing support to children, young people and their parents/carers following the sudden or expected death of a parent or sibling. We are one of the founder members of the Childhood Bereavement Network (CBN).

We are using the Parenting Fund grant to improve and extend our service. We want to disseminate models of good practice by working in partnership with the Childhood Bereavement Network (CBN) and by using the expertise and resources of its member organisations.

The project will:

• develop a set of CBN Guidelines for Best Practice
• develop a model assessment framework for use with bereaved parents and their families to help identify parents at risk of complex grief (e.g. those bereaved by suicide or murder) or where pre-death family relationships have been dysfunctional. The framework will identify the most beneficial support available for individual parents and their children
• improve awareness of and integrate the helplines and websites available to bereaved parents and their families
• identify gaps in materials available to bereaved parents & their families and fill them
• establish an email Parents' Consultation Forum to help with service development
• identify, test and deliver a range of good practice service models. Target groups will include:
  
  • parents experiencing bereavement by suicide, murder or manslaughter
  • bereaved fathers
  • bereaved parents of pre-school aged children
  • parents who are experiencing difficulty in managing the anger, aggressive behaviour and discipline of their bereaved children
  • black and minority ethnic parents
  • families experiencing the death of a child
  • grandparents who take on a parental role following the death of a parent
  • bereaved parents experiencing isolation in rural areas
  • bereaved parents supporting each other through self-help/social groups
  • bereaved parents who want to develop confidence & their parenting, social and practical skills.