The best online grief resources
Posted by AK Lander | On May 22, 2020 17:34
Losing a loved one can make you feel alone, stressed and needing someone to talk to. There are lots of online grief resources and here are the best ones.
Losing someone close to you can often make you feel alone, adrift, stressed and needing someone to talk to. There are a lot of online resources and support groups that you can join to help you through this distressing period of time.
When you lose someone, there is always a lot of things the next of kin need to sort out such as informing friends and family of the death, making funeral arrangements and putting in plans to buy memorial headstones for your loved one. With all of this going on you often don’t get time to grieve properly and for many, it can mean the grief hitting you in one go.
If you have lost a loved one and are grieving, then there are lots of online resources that can help you and here we have listed some of the best.
The best online grief resources to look at
Cruse Bereavement Care
Founded in 1959, Cruse Bereavement Care is a leading national charity for bereaved people in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Or, if you’re in Scotland you can access Cruse Scotland.
The charity offers support, advice and information to all bereaved people so that they have somewhere to turn when someone dies.
You can get support via their website, telephone or email. They also run Hope Again, which is a helpline and website designed specifically for children and young people who have lost a loved one.
At Cruise Bereavement Care, they have a network of around 5,000 trained volunteers that can offer free, confidential advice.
Mind
Mind is renowned for the advice and support they offer to anyone suffering a mental health problem, but they can also offer support and advice to anyone who is experiencing grief.
Mind offer support and reliable information to anyone suffering from grief or a mental health problem through their Infoline that offers advice and information or their publications and website.
They also run a Local Minds programme which is a network of around 125 local Mind centres across England and Wales. They specialise in support and care based on the needs of the communities they support.
There is a lot of information on grief and bereavement that can help you when you have lost a close friend or family member.
Care for the Family
Care for the Family offer bereavement support and they run networks and regular events for widowed young adults, bereaved parents and siblings.
On their website, they say: “Coping with the pain and heartache of a close bereavement is always difficult – not least when it’s accompanied by a sense of loneliness and a feeling that no one understands. We want to help those who are living with loss to discover hope for the future, and the strength to rebuild their lives and the lives of their families.”
As part of the service, they recommend books you can read, articles to look at, share personal stories from people who have suffered a bereavement and they also offer their own support for anyone that has lost someone and needs advice.
At A Loss
At A Loss help people suffering from bereavement find support in the UK and they do this in a number of ways.
They direct the bereaved and those supporting them to information and services that are most appropriate to their loss, promote the bereavement support that exists, plug the gaps in bereavement support where it is limited and offer training in bereavement care so people can support their local communities.
At A Loss says their aim is “to ensure that every bereaved person in the UK can find bereavement support when they need it”.
They also offer instant access to a counsellor that you can talk to via their ‘live chat’ tool on the associated website GriefChat.
The Compassionate Friends
The Compassionate Friends, also known as TCF, is a charitable organisation that aims to support bereaved parents, siblings and grandparents following the death of a child or children of any age from any cause.
The organisation will help any individual or family affected by the death of a child and this includes unmarried partners, adoptive parents, same-sex couples, single parents and adoptive parents too.
The Compassionate Friends knows that grieving for a child can be a lonely place and they offer bereaved parents the chance to stay in touch with one another for peer-to-peer support. They also have a telephone helpline that people can call, an online support chat, community forums and dedicated Facebook groups to help support those of you that have lost a loved one.
Child Bereavement UK
Child Bereavement UK helps to support children and young people up to the age of 25 who are facing bereavement and anyone who is affected by the death of a child. They also provide training to care professionals to help equip them to provide the best possible care to bereaved families.
Child Bereavement UK provide confidential support, information and guidance via their national helpline, live chat and emails from 9 am-5 pm from Monday to Friday.
You can also join support groups that are just for parents, young people or families. You can even get books, films or workbooks through Child Bereavement UK.
Grief Encounter
Another renowned online grief resource that you should consider looking at is Grief Encounter. They offer support to bereaved children and their families to ease the pain that is felt after the passing of a loved one.
All the services are free and the charity is funded by its supporters. With 1 in 29 children in the UK under the age of 16 suffering the death of a parent, Grief Encounter is a charity that looks to make a difference by addressing the issues a family faces.
They have launched a helpline called Grieftalk so you can get the support you need wherever you are in the UK, while their E-counselling service allows people suffering from bereavement to get in contact via electronic methods including e-mail and Skype.
Widowed and Young
Widowed and Young, known as WAY, is a charity that has a peer-to-peer support network for people who have lost a partner before their 51st birthday – married or not.
In fact, it is the only national charity in the UK dedicated to people aged 50 or under who have lost their partner. Since the formation of the charity back in 1997, there are now more than 3,500 members across the UK.
There is a secure members-only website that offers people a safe place to meet and chat online. The charity has social members with many forming groups that meet up throughout the year for walks, picnics and other activities.
Bereavement Advice Centre
The Bereavement Advice Centre gives practical information and advice on a range of issues and the processes that you face after a loved one has passed away.
For questions their team do not know the answer to, their experts will research it and call you back at a convenient time or will give you the contact details of an organisation better suited to help you.
The organisations’ aim is to give you “straightforward, useful advice when you need it” and all the information they provide is sourced from the government and other professional publications.
Here are some of the excellent online grief resources that are available to you if you have lost someone close to you. During the lockdown restrictions when we are unable to move as we normally would it can be even more useful to find online help in place of real-life assistance. To recap, these are the best online grief resources:
- Cruse Bereavement Care
- Mind
- Care for the Family
- At A Loss
- The Compassionate Friends
- Child Bereavement UK
- Grief Encounter
- Widowed and Young
- Bereavement Advice Centre
From choosing headstones to advice, our team are happy to help you in any way they can through this difficult time if you get in contact.