Anna Haslam – Community and Wellbeing Services Manager
Losing a loved one can be a painful and difficult time for many. That is why at Wigan & Leigh Hospice, our care doesn’t stop when a loved one dies, we also support people in their bereavement.
We offer varying levels of support for people whose loved one was under the care of hospice services, whether that be in our Inpatient Unit or out in the community.
The Hospice offers a range of support groups including Walk and Talk, a Bereavement Café, and Understanding your Grief. We also offer one to one support for those who are struggling with their loss.
But our support does not end there. We realise that there may be children who are facing the loss of a family member who need help understanding their emotions. By offering support sessions, the whole family can attend together and are offered support to help prepare for a loss.
Children have their own special memories of their loved ones, and it is important that they remember these special moments. This is why we have introduced ‘A Day to Remember’, a day for children aged between 5 and 12 who have lost a loved one under hospice services. The day includes activities and story readings to help children to explore their feelings and memories.
A child may feel isolated when they lose a loved one, they might feel different from their friends, and they might struggle to talk to the grieving adults because they don’t want to upset them even more. ‘A Day to Remember’ brings grieving families together to help them to feel less isolated and facilitate conversations between the adults and the children.
Bereavement is different for each person and can last for years. At Wigan & Leigh Hospice, we have a reoccurring remembrance service, which is a non-religious act of remembrance where families come together to remember a loved one. Grief affects us all in different ways and this service offers an opportunity to come along and have some time for personal reflection, listen to poetry readings, and see the name of your loved one be read out to all. After the service, there is an opportunity to light a candle and place a message on our memory tree. These messages are kept for the year, and we then hang them on one of our Christmas trees at Christmas.
We hope to support all of our patients’ loved ones with our bereavement and remembrance services. For more information on how we can help, see our bereavement support page.