TCF News, Issue 107 Summer 2021

Summer 2021 - TCF Newsletter | www.tcf.org.uk 4 At our April online event, we were delighted to welcome Jane Oundjian MBE, as she shared her own moving story of the loss of her single parent mother when she was just 16 years old, and the death of her son, Jeremy, aged 14 months. Jane explored with candid insight the very great differences in her responses to each loss. She spoke movingly and with honesty about the reality of how desperate it feels to lose a child, and the maelstrom of emotions and feelings – including anger and despair – that follow. She generously shared her learning and wisdom derived from a long career and experience of working with, and alongside, the bereaved. Ultimately she invited us to embrace the journey, however painful. Jane trained as a general counsellor with Westminster Pastoral Foundation in 1993 and then went on to train with Cruse Bereavement Care. She worked providing one-to-one bereavement support in her local community as well as helping to train future Cruse counsellors. She developed The Bereavement Journey in 1995, a course designed to help grieving people in small groups. She ran this at Holy Trinity Brompton for 23 years, and now continues to run it at her home in West Sussex. Jane was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2020 for services to the bereaved. What you said... "A wonderful talk, so calm, and clear, and yet also full of useful content and effective metaphors". Shirley "(This) will have given many parents such hope for the future and for their journey along the grief road that we all have to tread". Liz "I found Jane’s talk hugely helpful – I loved her simple but powerful messages, all the great references and the sharing of her own lived experience". Ruth We have been running online events and inspiring talks since summer 2020. Listen to them all at www.tcf.org.uk/videos Finding Hope After Losing A Child with guest speaker Jane Oundjian