Winston’s Wish and Macmillan team up to produce support book to prepare children for bereavement

Winston’s Wish, the leading childhood bereavement charity in the UK, has teamed up with Macmillan Cancer Support to produce a book for parents who are nearing the end of life to broach the subject with their child.

The book, titled Preparing a Child for Loss, aims to open conversations with children to help them understand more about dying and to prepare them for the potential death of a close family member.

More than 100 children are bereaved every day in the UK, with the death of a loved one the most fundamental loss a child will ever face. Studies show that if childhood grief is not dealt with appropriately it can have a deep and lasting effect on a child’s emotional well-being and cause problems later in life. Preparing a Child for Loss is designed to give children the right support at the right time, so that they can go on to lead full and flourishing lives.

Winston’s Wish was delighted to work on the publication with Macmillan, with the book available to download for free at: https://www.winstonswish.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/MAC15372childforlossE1lowrespdf20151223.pdf 

Elspeth Wigmore, Information Development Nurse at Macmillan Cancer Support, said:

“Winston’s Wish approached Macmillan to suggest working together to develop information for people with a terminal diagnosis, who may have some time to prepare themselves and their children for their death. The result was our new publication ‘Preparing a child for loss’. This was a great collaboration using the skills of people in both Macmillan and Winston’s Wish. We also had some really insightful reviews from people affected by bereavement from Macmillan’s online community and they helped to shape the content. The team at Winston’s Wish and health professionals with experience in dealing with bereavement all contributed to creating a unique resource. It both helps people begin to have difficult conversations and signposts on to who else can help them and their families. We are proud to have worked together to develop something that we hope will provide support at such a difficult time.”

Fergus Crow, CEO at Winston’s Wish, added:

“We were delighted to team up with Macmillan Cancer Support to produce this resource – which will be an important support tool for anyone going through a difficult time. The resource brings together the skills of the Macmillan team and our own practitioners to produce a book that will help the reader approach an undoubtedly tough conversation with a child. We hope to work with Macmillan on more resources like this in the future.”

Each year, Winston’s Wish reaches more than 40,000 bereaved children and young people through an array of dedicated services. These specialist support programmes include support following death as a result of accident, illness, homicide, suicide and military service.

The Winston’s Wish Helpline, staffed by qualified clinical practitioners, provides guidance and information for anyone supporting a bereaved child – 08452 03 04 05, 9am-5pm Monday – Friday and 7pm-9.30pm on Wednesday.