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Meet our new trustees

At the end of 2024, we were delighted to welcome three new trustees to The Compassionate Friends, elected by our members of bereaved parents and siblings. Our trustees are an integral part of the charity and help oversee decision-making to ensure that TCF delivers its goals of offering high quality peer support to grieving parents and adult siblings. Each trustee brings their own professional talents and expertise, but also their own experience of losing a beloved child or sibling.

Tony Bruno

“I am passionate about supporting bereaved families, having experienced the death of my son 7 years ago. I attended Gloucestershire TCF meetings and found great comfort and hope through those meetings and, engaging with (mainly) parents who had suffered similar experiences. I have stayed close to TCF and at one point did enquire about the possibility of establishing a TCF 
group in Hong Kong, where I lived at the time.

I founded a charitable organisation in Hong Kong dedicated to youth mental health and suicide prevention, and have had over five years’ experience as a board director of a separate charity that supports young people with mental health challenges. I have held roles as treasurer, member of remuneration committee, and head of fundraising. I founded an annual event that has engaged thousands of people directly and through social media, and generated £700,000 in non-restricted funding.I have developed a deep understanding of the importance of compassionate, community-based support for bereaved families and have acted informally to help people who have had similar experiences to my own. I found great comfort and help from TCF during my journey, and wish to contribute my skills and experience back to TCF. In particular I am keen to leverage my skills to help strengthen TCFs fundraising, digital communication and governance. I have experience developing and implementing growth strategies in businesses and charities and I am particularly interested in helping TCF develop growth plans. Outside of my charitable work, I have had a long, successful career as an executive in business services outsourcing, recently acting as executive vice-president for a worldwide business providing services to tech and online.”

Karen Chandler

“I’m Karen and - unbelievably really - my son Gianni died ten and a half years ago, aged 23. Obviously, like you all, my life has been shattered into a thousand pieces; but these days I find joy, laughter and fulfilment as well as brokenness and pain. Extraordinary, really. I never would have believed it possible. One of the unexpected aspects of my bereavement is that I have trained as a civil funeral celebrant- and enjoy (yes, that’s the right word) working with the bereaved and walking alongside them. As well as this, I ran a small charity for 13 years and am currently a Director of a CIC - so I am steeped in the Third Sector. The Compassionate Friends were a lifeline to me in the earlier days- and I would love to “repay” their compassion, humanity and understanding.”

Jackie Hewitt

“In 2017 I lost my eldest son, Guy, to an accidental overdose, and I stepped overnight into the world of a being a bereaved parent. Although there had been painful times of “anticipated loss” over the years, as Guy experienced many mental health difficulties and substance difficulties, the finality of his loss was still a terrible shock. I found TCF to be gentle and supportive and a local group extended huge compassion and support to both me and my mother (which lifted a weight for me).

My first retreat was an intense experience but vital to me safely connecting and beginning to explore the depths of child loss. I have volunteered at several retreats and help co-facilitate the online group for parents bereaved through alcohol and substance use. My personal and professional values are strongly aligned with TCF. I am honoured to be able to “give back” through being a trustee and to help others as they enter this shared world of child and sibling loss.

I have worked in both the corporate international and UK mental health charity sectors, taking on strategic and operational leadership roles and active involvement in management restructures and business transformation processes. I have experience of building strong stakeholder relationships across all aspects of an organisation and am familiar with submitting funding bids and reporting to commissioners and donors on service reach, impact and outcomes. I am a BACP accredited counsellor and have a small private practice, supporting clients through change and loss.”

We thank all of our trustees for their dedication to TCF and look forward to working closely with Tony, Jackie and Karen on the board.