Ten years ago Di Parkes’ daughter, Joanna, was killed by her husband and Joanna’s two young children came to live with Di.

She found herself not only coping with her own grief at losing her daughter but trying to find a way to help them through theirs.

Times have changed and today there is a lot more focus on ways to support mental and emotional wellbeing.

The UK charity, Winston’s Wish, helps children and their families after the loss of a parent or sibling.

Part-funded by Victim Support it helps many children who have lost a parent or sibling through homicide, particularly domestic homicide.

Di channelled her own grief into caring for her grandchildren and also setting up the Joanna Simpson Foundation in memory of her daughter.

The Foundation has recently paid to bring Di Stubbs from Winston’s Wish over to the island, to train teachers and other professionals in how to support grieving children.

The funds for this were raised through holding a Turquoise Ball, hosted by Joanna Crookall at her home in Grenaby.

Di says that the expertise of Winston’s Wish, as the leading charity in this area, is exactly the sort of thing she would have been grateful for when she was supporting her own grandchildren.

’Yes I would have been and that’s why I am so keen to get this support for children who have been bereaved.

’We’ve trained 44 people on these two days which is wonderful for the island and I’m so proud.’

Isle of Man Hospice, which also runs bereavement counselling services, was happy to offer its conference room as a venue for the training.

Anne Mills, chief executive of Hospice, recalled an occasion when her own son was young and had lost his much-loved grandfather and two family pets within the space of a fortnight.

’He had quite significant grief and I remember phoning up the school in the morning to say that he wouldn’t be coming in and the school laughed.

’They did not see the significance of me phoning up to tell them about my son’s grief and that he might need some help and support.’

Fortunately, nowadays child bereavement is taken a lot more seriously as evidenced by the numbers attending the training on the island.

Di Stubbs said: ’It was great to see so many teachers come along to do a little bit of training about the sort of things that bereaved children feel and think, the sort of behaviours that they might act out and also to talk about the most helpful responses under those circumstances and maybe some of the less helpful things that we do.

’It’s difficult to get exact figures but there are around 600 children between five and 16 on the island who have been bereaved of a parent or sibling.

That’s one in 25 which is like one in every classroom.

’On the island it’s a field that’s growing and being further developed.

’It’s nice to see that Cruse is now working with bereaved children as well as bereaved adults.

’It’s tremendous to see the work that the Hospice and Rebecca House are doing, supporting bereaved children and families.’

Anne Mills agreed: ’We recognised that children needed bereavement care and support.

’Some children are excluded from schools for bad behaviour, for lack of focus, for under-achieving and there’s really undiagnosed grief going on.

’We now have quite an extensive resource for people who are referred to us, and it’s not just for when a family member has died in Hospice.

’There are lots of pockets of very good work in the island but it lacks joining up at the moment.

’We want to work with organisations like Winston’s Wish, which is established and has the credibility as the experts in training and we will continue to work with them.’

People often worry about what they should say to a person who has been bereaved, she added .

Di Stubbs said that, whilst there is often no ’right thing’ to say, when you are dealing with bereaved children there are a few key things she has learned from her own extensive experience.

’There is a very loud thing that children said that they would like from everybody around them and that is to acknowledge what has happened,’ she said.

’ That is so much of the help and support that they need.

’So, in a school situation for example, that means the chemistry teacher saying: "I was really sorry to hear about your dad".

’For children and young people it’s the fact that people don’t ignore that issue and I think that’s true of all bereaved people. They don’t want it ignored, they want the name said.

’Children also like help to understand what has happened so they need information in ways that they can understand.

They like help to explore their feelings about grief and grieving and they like help to remember: they will value stories and things that help them to remember.

’They will really appreciate the opportunity to meet other children who have been bereaved and they like memorials and rituals of some form, so being involved in some way that remembers the person who has died.’

â?¢ You can find out more about bereavement counselling in the island at:

www.hospice.org.im

www.cruseisleofman.org - adult bereavement counselling and Cruz Kids

How do you offer support to a young person who has lost a parent or a sibling?

Julie Blckburn speaks to people who can help anyone who finds themself in that situation.