Introducing TCF - For health and social care professionals

UK Helpline: 0 345 123 23 0 4 | tcf.org.uk • Understands, recognises and normalises the intensity of early grief and the long-lasting impact of child loss • Encourages and sustains bereaved parents and families – as hearing from others further on in their grief offers comfort and hope for a future without their loved one, and models ways they might survive such a devastating loss • Continued support, understanding and friendship after the first weeks, months or years of loss when family or friends’ support may have diminished. Bereaved parents often comment that TCF’s peer support offers the acknowledgement that they have not found elsewhere. Parents do not feel quite so alone when they feel validated and supported in their grief. As a result, they are more likely to imagine the possibility that they can survive their bereavement. Speaking with another bereaved parent means that the newly bereaved can “take off the mask.” In doing so, they feel better able to share more openly and honestly about how they are feeling, without pressure to manage their grief more quickly or in a different way. They are also able to talk openly about their precious children without the fear of being “shut down” or needing to consider the feelings of those around them who are not bereaved parents. Evidence for the benefits of peer support for the bereaved “There is consistent evidence that peer support is beneficial to bereaved survivors.” Bartone et al, 2019 “Everything you say in your (support) email is so profound. Only a mother who lost a child could acknowledge so well my grief and pain. Sometimes we just need to hear that others know how we really feel.” Claire Undoubtedly the support that the bereaved parents and siblings receive from their family and friends is vital. However, there are additional benefits when they are able to interact with those who have suffered a similar bereavement. TCF’s services rely on our network of trained and supported volunteers who offer this peer support. Our volunteers’ main qualification is that they too have been bereaved, are now more resilient around their own loss, and are thus able to support and offer understanding and hope to other parents more recently bereaved than themselves.