Olivia, aged 13, was supported by Child Bereavement UK in Leeds after her mother died. She and her father John talk about how support helped Olivia cope with her grief. 

Grief follows you everywhere you go and there’s nothing you can do about it. But it gets better over time and smaller and doesn’t follow you around all the time.

Olivia

My mum passed away a few years ago. When I was a little, I lived with my mum because my parents weren’t together. When my mum died, I had to move in with my dad and had to change to a new primary school, where I got some support. But then I went into high school and there wasn’t the same sort of support, so we decided to go to Child Bereavement UK.

I went to groups and had face-to-face support on Zoom. For one session, my bereavement support practitioner sent me some salt and coloured crayons. I stuck the salt on the paper and coloured it in with the crayons. Then I wrote on the paper what memory of my mum each colour represented for me, which I found very helpful and was really fun to do.

Grief follows you everywhere you go and there’s nothing you can do about it. But it gets better over time and smaller and doesn’t follow you around all the time, but you want it to go more than anything and it doesn’t go completely ever.

Music and talking to my friends helps me and I like reading because it gets my head stuck in another world.

I’d encourage someone in the same situation as me to go to Child Bereavement UK because I think it will be helpful. It will help you to feel better about yourself and about the situation itself. And it will also make your parents feel better because they want to know that you’re supported and that they don’t have to worry about it.

John

When Olivia left primary school and the school’s support ended, I was desperate to find anywhere that could help a single parent like me - it’s very hard getting Olivia to open up to me. She wanted to say stuff, but she felt she had to hold back because she didn’t want to upset me. So to get support from Child Bereavement UK was fantastic. I got to talk to somebody, and I found someone Olivia could talk to and say what she wanted to say without worrying.

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