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Autumn 2020 - TCF Newsletter | www.tcf.org.uk 4 Specialist Online Support Groups a Hugely Successful Initiative When coronavirus hit and we were no longer able to hold our retreat weekends and gatherings, we adapted quickly and conceived a range of virtual support groups for parents and siblings who had experienced a similar loss. Sharon Rose, our Events Coordinator, organised each group and offered support to our wonderful volunteer facilitators who ran the meetings online. A warm and grateful thank you to Sharon and all the group facilitators for their commitment to, and care, in running these groups. We asked Sharon to give us a flavour of the online specialist groups programme. At the time of writing we have held 29 specialist online support groups for parents and siblings (a total of around 400 participants). These were initially advertised as one-off events but have been so successful that we have often held them monthly– although we are trying to give priority to those who have not attended a group before. The support groups have often been overbooked and although it has sometimes been difficult we have tried to limit the number of participants to around 15 per session so that everyone has an opportunity to speak if they choose. Often these online groups are a welcome addition to a local group, and participants have commented that it feels comfortable to be among those who understand a specific situation and bereavement, something that in the past we could only ever offer at our retreats. We have held groups so far for *fathers *siblings * childless parents * parents bereaved by substance or alcohol use * parents bereaved by suicide * parents bereaved of a baby or young child *parents bereaved of a school age child *parents bereaved by a road incident *parents bereaved by cancer or long term illness *parents whose adult child (35+ years) has died. We are also considering holding lone parent, an older school child and step parent groups. We have used the feedback from evaluation forms we have emailed out after the groups to develop and improve what we do and to ensure that the experience was helpful and supportive for the participants and our volunteer facilitators have the support they need. It has been hugely rewarding to know that TCF has been reaching out to many people who may not otherwise have had the opportunity to access support at this time and also to reach out to newly bereaved parents and siblings who may never have accessed support before from TCF, either through attending a physical group or a TCF supportive weekend. Most participants had not attended a TCF online event before although now we are finding that more and more parents and siblings are either attending their local groups online - if they have one - or are returning to these focused events. We hope that we can keep running these groups (perhaps less regularly) even after lockdown has ended as it has been a wonderful opportunity to reach out, meet and support more of our members. Some selected feedback below: “Thank you so much. I found the group last night so helpful and compassionate I am so glad I found TCF early after losing my daughter. With not being able to visit groups during lockdown the zoom session last night helped so much. I hope more events are put on. Thanks once again.” “This was my second virtual meeting and again as per the first one I found the session very rewarding. There is nothing like talking to dads in the same position and the support and openness is amazing. I hope these will become a regular event even after lockdown as it is a unique opportunity to talk to other fathers.”