TCF News, Spring 2021

Spring 2021 - TCF Newsletter | www.tcf.org.uk 6 Online group facilitation training “This event has grown our confidence in ourselves and in the support we can expect from TCF nationally, and started the kit of tools we will need as we go ahead”. Ruth Mercier and Carolyn Brice ran the second online Information and Training event for group facilitators over two Saturday mornings in January and February. Attendees included thirteen TCF members interested in or already facilitating peer support for bereaved parents or siblings. Four delegates also came from SLOW (Surviving the Loss of Our World) which has run two groups for bereaved parents in London since 2007 and who wanted to learn from TCF’s experience and approach. The agenda covered practical matters such as understanding our aim and roles, selecting a venue, finding members, and structuring each meeting in terms of programme, seating, etc. Plenty of time was devoted to skills and techniques needed to manage meetings and ensure all present feel secure, valued, and able to do real grief work. We considered how the facilitator can encourage caring participation both explicitly through stated ground rules and implicitly by modelling appropriate behaviour – for instance active listening, sensitive use of language and appropriate degrees of self-disclosure. We looked at potential challenges and how we might address them. Sharing with people already working as group facilitators was especially useful. At the conclusion those already running groups were ready to apply various things they had learned. Others felt better able to make an informed decision about their future roles within TCF, and some now plan to start groups in their districts. For ourselves, the Bolton TCF group was an important lifeline early in our bereavement. We have since moved and as there is no group in our new area we feel the time has come for us to try to give back by setting one up. This event has grown our confidence in ourselves and in the support we can expect from TCF nationally, and started the kit of tools we will need as we go ahead. David Chamberlin, TCF Volunteer, Oswestry News and comment From around our Charity Legacies from grief A new book has just been published with contributions frommany members of The Compassionate Friends. Legacies from Grief, edited by Freddie Bagley, is a book offering hope to bereaved families. The reader will find here not only an insight into the devastation brought by the loss of a precious child, but many stories of hope and light. These are demonstrated in the form of inspiring and heartfelt legacies created in memory of a child that has died. Available from Amazon and Waterstones. If you are purchasing through Amazon please use Amazonsmile and choose The Compassionate Friends as your charity. Thank you. All proceeds to The Compassionate Friends and Cardiac Risk in the Young (CRY).