Hospice offers 'vital' help to grieving children

Darcy was 15 when her mum died at Saint Michael's Hospice in Harrogate.

For a young girl, working through her GCSE exams, it was a painful experience.

"She had cancer when I was three years old," she says.

"It returned in 2022. I thought she would live until I was 18 - that was the point she always said she would get me to - but in summer 2024 she became quite ill and that's when I knew she was going to die."

Her mum Dominica died in September 2024 aged 53.

Saint Michael's runs a service called Just B, which was able to support Darcy through her mother's illness and death with specialist counselling.

It has received a grant from Children in Need which will allow dozens of young people to be supported into the future.

Tony Collins, chief executive of Saint Michael's Hospice, is also a bereavement support worker for Just B, which operates around Harrogate and beyond offering help to all age groups.

"It's difficult for a young child to process grief but we treat them as individuals," he says.

"It's about giving people a chance to express who they are, to search their own mind and heart to find out what they are actually thinking and express those emotions.

"What Darcy needed was somewhere to go, where she could express emotions in safety, therefore leaving them there, so she could go back to the hospice and spend time with her mum as she died."

Collins says the Children in Need grant will unlock bereavement support for up to 50 children every year.

"Just B provides vital emotional and practical support for people facing some of life's most difficult moments," he says.

"When someone is receiving care from Saint Michael's Hospice, the impact of a life-limiting illness extends far beyond the patient, affecting the people who love or care for them too.

"Without a doubt it positively changes lives."

Darcy says there will always be times "grief will just come up and hurt me".

"I know I can still get support and always will be able to," she says.

"There's so many things I wish my mum could have seen me do, like my prom, but I know she is always around me and watching me."

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