A woman who has served a children’s bereavement charity for 17 years is retiring in March.

Gill Skinner started working for Cruse Bereavement Care Isle of Man in 2005, after she saw an advertisement appealing for people to train in counselling and bereavement support.

She previously worked for the Metropolitan Police in London for 10 years and said that she had always had an interest in bereavement care for children: ’My own daughters had lost their father when they were quite young, and there was support available but not the sort that I felt would have really benefitted them at that stage.’

Mrs Skinner went on to propose an idea to Cruse, which was to provide sponsorship for a family to spend a residential weekend at the Venture Centre in Maughold.

This began 14 years ago and started the ball rolling for an individual project, CruzKids IoM.

She explained: ’CruzKids was named by the children and young people involved.

’We have a three-pronged approach with our work - helping them to understand their feelings and emotions around grief, to increase their self-esteem and self-confidence and to improve their social skills.

’We’ve been very fortunate that we’ve been funded for the last 12 years by a grant from Children In Need, which has allowed us to develop to what we feel is a ’gold standard’ service.

’Many of the children who have since grown up have returned and helped as ambassadors for CruzKids.

’We support anybody and everybody and every single case is individual and we recognise and understand that [sessions] can go beyond a certain period of time, as bereavement is a lifelong journey.

’With children and young people, when they reach their next developmental stage, they grieve afresh as there’s new feelings and understanding.

’We might get a message from people years later asking to speak to us again, so we never close the door,’ she said.

Mrs Skinner said that she feels the time is right to retire after 17 years: ’I love the kids. It’s been the best job in the world.

’They’ve grown to be very successful and decent human beings. I don’t think there’ll just be one shed of tear when I go, and I can walk away knowing that the job has been well done.’