Online Support Group for Parents Bereaved by a Road Traffic Incident

30 May 2024, 19.00 – 20.30

Online Via Zoom

WHEN OUR CHILD HAS DIED IN A ROAD TRAFFIC INCIDENT

Please note that registration for this online group has now closed. Please contact us if you would like to attend the group.

We do apologise but this online group is not suitable for anyone bereaved 3 months or less - please contact our Helpline on 0345 123 2304 if you are under 3 months bereaved.

Please can we ask that you join the group using a desktop computer, a laptop or a tablet. We do apologise but it is not appropriate to join a Zoom sharing session using a mobile phone as you may not be able to see the other participants in the session.

Please note: Our online support groups are not recommended for those who are under 3 months bereaved

Roads are perhaps the most dangerous zones in our modern world. A random mechanical failure or a momentary lapse of concentration can have fatal consequences.

A child may be fatally injured crossing the road. A younger child riding their bike, or an adult cyclist could be a victim. A child of any age might have been a passenger in a vehicle involved in a collision. Our child’s death on the roads may have been caused by a stranger’s dangerous or reckless driving. Our feelings may be even more conflicted if our child was the driver and at fault.

In almost every other aspect of life, we suffer for the misjudgements we make, but we survive. We live and learn. However, the road does not always offer us a second chance

Any parent whose child has died struggles in some way to find a way forward. However, this struggle may be even harder for those bereaved in such a sudden and traumatic way. Tragically, our child has paid a heavy price.

At this time we are running this event as a facilitated online group using Zoom .

Unfortunately due to the nature of online groups we will be limiting the number of attendees and booking is via our website only.

We will confirm your attendance by email.

If this event is fully booked we will be running further groups at a later date to give more parents the opportunity to attend.

Once you book you will receive more details closer to the meeting date. Just a reminder to check your spam or junk email folders if you haven’t received the link for the online meeting by the day of the meeting. Please contact info@tcf.org.uk if you have any questions or queries.

Please note that these online events are run by bereaved parent volunteers. Our volunteers are not professionals and so what we offer is a uniquely warm, comforting and supportive online group organised and facilitated by parents who have also experienced the loss of a child and have found understanding and hope themselves through The Compassionate Friends.

If you are newly bereaved:
Please note, our online support group meetings may not be the most appropriate form of support for very newly bereaved parents. We know how vulnerable we can be in the early weeks and months of our grief and how raw the pain and heartache can feel.

In an online support environment, we will of course do all we can to express our empathy to newly bereaved parents verbally but we won’t be able to offer the very important physical presence and contact that physical groups can offer especially when parents become very upset. Our online meetings tend to be shorter than physical meetings which also means that we won’t have as much time to hear from all group members in the ways in which we would do if we were meeting face to face.

We know that in the early days of our grief, there is a strong need to tell our ‘story’ about the loss of our precious child. We know that this is a very important part of grieving – however, our support groups, whether online or face to face can only offer the opportunity to say a little about your loss and in not too much detail so as to enable everyone to have a chance to speak and also to minimise the risk of anyone attending being re-traumatised around their own loss by hearing graphic details of someone else’s loss. It would help to know how early you are in your loss and whether you are already receiving TCF support – what we don’t wish to do is increase the vulnerability of any bereaved parent by not managing your expectations about what our support group offers and is unable to offer. We may make contact if we need to explore with you whether our online group support is the most appropriate way to support you at this stage in your loss.

What parents have said after an earlier support group:

'Just listening to other parents and what they were going through was helpful. No one else I have spoken to has lost a child and I have felt alone in a crowd. I liked that it was informal and there was no pressure to speak.'

'When I came off the RTC session I felt like I was not alone in the world. I felt part of a little club/community that none of us want to be in but find ourselves connected in the most tragic way. I really do think this should be a more regular zoom event. It was the most helpful thing I've done yet.'

'...the importance of this group is that we had all lost a child in an RTC and I had finally not felt alone. I felt like I was talking to people just like me. People that understood my grief and were walking the same grief path and traumatic experience of a sudden and tragic loss of our child. I came away not feeling alone and I was listened too. It was like listening to myself hearing others stories.'

'Just seeing and hearing from people bereaved in a similar way made me feel less isolated and less ‘victimised’. The facilitators were great! '

Please give your feedback here.